


lead me to where i need to be

by everytuesday



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Archie Andrews-centric, Friendship, M/M, Munroe Moore-centric, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Senior year, Slow Burn, Therapy, recovering from trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-01-24 17:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21342109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everytuesday/pseuds/everytuesday
Summary: mary drags archie into therapy, archie drags munroe back to school, and munroe drags his little brother to riverdale high's gsa.(the slowburn archie/munroecellmates to friends-with-extensive-shared-trauma to loversfic no one asked for but me)
Relationships: Archie Andrews & Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones & Veronica Lodge, Archie Andrews/Munroe Moore, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Munroe Moore/Kevin Keller
Comments: 29
Kudos: 70





	1. dr. harper

**Author's Note:**

> listen no one else loves these two as much as i do so i figured i might as well pretend im not in grad school and start another WIP

_ September. Now. _

Archie walks the length of the waiting area for the ninth time since he arrived ten minutes ago. It’s not really a _ waiting room _so much as it is a narrow hallway with three wooden chairs and a water cooler squeezed into the space before a set of doors. “Cramped” would be a generous descriptor, not that Archie’s letting it slow his pacing any.

The office nearest him opens and Archie gets a facefull of door. He staggers back, dazed, while a blond woman rounds the door, jaw dropped open as she babbles out, “My goodness, I’m so sorry!” 

Archie blinks a few times and rubs the tender spot on his forehead he’s sure will be turning colors before too long, “You’re fine, I shouldn’t have been standing right in front like that.”

She gives the waiting area a once over and turns back to him, hesitant, “You wouldn’t happen to be Archie Andrews, would you?”

“Dr. Harper?” Archie guesses.

“That would be me. Not my finest introduction,” she gives an apologetic grimace. He expected her to be older for some reason, but she looks a little younger than his mom, with a round face, aquiline nose, and her hair held back with a navy blue headband that matches her skirt. And she has kind eyes. “You can come in now, if you like."

She gestures to the still-open door behind her. He glances back out of the waiting room, still hoping Mary will show up and tell him she’s changed her mind about him needing to be here, but she doesn’t, so he follows Dr. Harper around the door and into her office.

It’s small, but it’s not as tightly packed as the hallway outside. A minimalist bookshelf rests against one wall, which has a few technical-looking volumes on it as well as a number of small pots containing succulents. There’s two seats, both ugly brown leather but they look comfortable at least. Dr. Harper gestures for him to sit and he does, tapping out a rhythm to the arms of the chair as he watches Dr. Harper collect her clipboard off her desk and settle across from him.

She balances the clipboard over her lap and leans in, “So, you’re Archie Andrews. You’re seventeen, high school senior. Your mother scheduled this appointment for you because you’ve been dealing with some pretty traumatic things over the last few years and she thinks you could use the support.”

“That sounds like what she’d say,” he says, noncommittal and uneasy as he tries to imagine what Mary would’ve filled out on those intake forms. She means well, he knows that, but everything about this feels personal and she doesn’t even know half of the things that happened.

“How do you feel about that assessment?” Dr. Harper asks. “This is your appointment. Tell me about where you’re at right now.”

“She’s just-- I’ve been through some bad stuff, that part’s true, but I think I’m doing okay,” Archie explains, as he’s tried repeatedly with Mary in the last week (to no avail). “I told my mom I’d try this out and I’m going to _ try. _ I’m not gonna not try, but I don’t need drugs to make me feel better and I’m not crazy, so I’m not really sure what I’m doing here.”

“I think you’ll be happy to know that I can’t actually prescribe medication. I’m not a psychiatrist. And to your other concern, therapy isn’t just for ‘crazy people,’ Archie. It certainly can be helpful for people experiencing psychosis, but that’s not its only use. I’ve been practicing in Riverdale my whole career and I’ve seen people from all walks of life in this office.”

“Okay.”

“I take it you’re not convinced.”

Archie shakes his head.

“That’s alright. How about you tell me a little bit about yourself? Or what you think is bringing you to this place in your life?”

_ August. Before. _

He’s in bed, gasping, throat raw and tears running down his cheeks, and there’s a figure above him. _ To drag him off to another fight _, his mind supplies, and panic takes hold: he shoves himself upright, drawing a fist back, while his eyes adjust to the dim lighting enough to recognize--

“_Archie _!”

Fear flashes across Mary’s face and she throws a hand up, stifling her cry of alarm. Archie drops his fist, but she’s already staggering back from him, trips over his guitar, and goes sprawling onto the floor.

“Sh-shit!” he has to gasp between words, his heart racketing in chest, each _ thump _so intense it hurts to breath, “Mom-- I’m--”

Archie struggles out of his tangle of sheets and braces himself up against his headboard. Mary recovers, looking helplessly up at him, and he swallows down the panic in his throat, gets his voice steady enough to choke out, “Mom, I’m s-so sorry.”

Mary starts crying. Really crying, an ugly sob that gets caught in her throat and tears that won’t stop until her cheeks turn red. She doesn’t get up and Archie’s still shaking too much to move to the floor, so they stay where they are, both crying. Archie wants to keep apologizing, but his throat won’t open up again. Mary takes a shuddering breath and rises from the floor, carefully. All her movements are slow and measured and she approaches Archie the way someone would approach a volatile animal, not their son. She eases herself onto the edge of his bed and looks at him, takes his shaking hand in hers.

“It’s from the fighting ring, isn’t it?” she asks. When Archie nods, her expression darkens and a glint of anger shines in her eyes, but it's gone as quickly as it came. “I wish there was something I could do to help you. You’re safe here, you know that, right?”

Archie swallows and manages a nod.

“Try to get some more sleep.”

She seems like she wants to hug him, but she doesn’t and instead runs a hand through his sweat-damp hair and looks seriously at him, kindly, before she gets up and slips back to the hall, leaving his door slightly ajar, light streaming in from the hallway. Archie crawls out of bed and closes it all the way, then gets back under the covers. He lies awake until the glow of morning starts to creep across his room.

“Dad stopped waking me up,” Archie tells her while he’s pouring himself a bowl of cereal a few hours later. “One time, I didn’t remember where I was in time and I actually did hit him.” -- He gauges Mary’s reaction, wonders if she’ll be scared of him after last night, but she just looks _ sad_, which is a different kind of awful -- “He was okay, but we figured out it’s better to just let me sleep through them.”

“Don’t you want to be woken out of it?” Mary asks. “You sounded so scared last night.”

“I don’t remember them most of the time,” Archie says. “Anyway, this is why you should just let me go back to staying at the El Royale at night.”

“You’re not sleeping in a _ gym_, Archie.”

And that was the end of it.

  
  


_ September. Now. _

“My mom sent me here because my nightmares freak her out.”

Dr. Harper scribbles on her clipboard, then looks up to meet his eyes when she asks, “How long have you been having nightmares?”

“Seven, eight months? They started while I was in juvie.”

“And these nightmares, how are they affecting you?”

“I just don’t like bothering other people. It’s hard to sleep in the same house as my mom when I know if I fall asleep, I’m just gonna wake her up.”

“So they interrupt your sleep?” Dr. Harper suggests.

“Yeah, I guess.” They make him not sleep in the first place, so it’s hard to call them _ interrupting, _ but that gets across the general idea, he supposes.

“And you said they started in juvie. That was mentioned in your intake paperwork. You were at the Leopold and Loeb detention center, right?”

“Yeah. It was shitty.”

“How was it shitty?” Dr. Harper asks. Archie’s surprise at hearing her repeat his cursing is quickly replaced with irritation at her for wondering how being in child prison was shitty.

“I was in _ juvie _,” he says indignantly, “Why would it be anything else? And it was worse than that. It was all over the news a few months back, the underage fighting ring, with guards betting on inmates. I got caught up in the middle of it.”

“I may not have phrased that correctly, I apologize. I wasn’t trying to question how you felt, I just wanted to know what specifically about it was shitty to you. Although you sort of answered my question.”

“Oh,” Archie relaxes a little.

“I’m just wondering if there was a specific part of it that was especially difficult for you. Or if there’s something you’ve found yourself thinking about or dreaming about more frequently.”

There’s a lot about L&L that was shitty. Not seeing his friends or family, falling behind in school, any of the beating he’d taken from other kids or the guards, the beatings he’d been forced to give out.

“The food sucked,” he says, which is true. Dr. Harper lets out a bark of laughter and he can’t place where she finds the humor. If she knows he’s understating it or just genuinely thinks bad prison food is funny. 

“Alright,” she says. “Fair enough. Have you talked to anyone about what happened to you while you were there?”

“Uh, not really,” Archie says, “Munroe, kind of.”

“Who’s Munroe?”

_ July. Before. _

Archie’s been sleeping at the El Royale at least three nights a week, curled up in a corner of the locker room, even though none of the guys from L&L are crashing anymore and he has a perfectly usable bed in his own house across town. The sleeping bag and pillow he brought from home would indicate to anyone paying enough attention that he’s doing it on purpose, even if he pretends it’s responsibility that keeps him there when Fred starts to ask. He always has a reason. A beer with the guys after winning a match and he couldn’t drive home. Rain late at night making it not feel safe to drive. Too tired after a workout and since exhaustion causes seventy-two thousand car crashes a year in the United States, he’s just being responsible. Fred probably knows better, but he seems to be willing to pretend Archie’s excuses aren’t bullshit.

The nightmares don’t stop while he stays at the El Royale, at least he doesn’t think they do because he still wakes up with his heart pounding, his throat raw, cold sweat sticky on his skin.

On the nights when he is home (and every night before Archie started sleeping at the gym), Archie wakes up to find Fred hovering over him, worried, wanting to ask, but scared of the explanation he’ll get. Archie can’t do much to stop the nightmares, though not for lack of effort. He tries to sleep with the light on or with the door closed or he tries to drink something warm before he falls asleep, but it’s been a pretty consistent routine these days of waking up crying with his father by his bedside.

Fred cries too, sometimes, when he thinks Archie’s fallen back asleep. Archie will be hovering on the edge of unconsciousness when he hears his father’s muffled tears, feels Fred’s hand stroking his hair like he used to when Archie was little and had come down with the flu.

Archie wishes what was wrong with him could be fixed with some chicken noodle soup and a capful of Motrin, but it can’t, so he sleeps at the gym because it doesn’t make sense for both of them to suffer through this. He can do this much for his dad at least. The last thing Fred needs is another stressor; his heart is still weak from the gunshot wound last year. 

He wakes up early, gets the gym open, and then sneaks back home to shower with decent water pressure. Some mornings, Betty and Jughead will appear to beg a ride to Pop’s off him, and they’ll meet Veronica there. They still all hang out with each other, even Veronica. Archie was worried at first, but she and Betty have a friendship that will take a lot more than an uncomfortable break up to shake. And he and Veronica are still friends; he hasn’t lost her despite her everything.

This morning, though, it’s Munroe’s voice drifting across the locker room, “You’re here early.”

Archie hurries to finish shoving his sleeping bag into his locker, hoping Munroe won’t have noticed, “Wanted to make sure everything was ready when we opened.”

“Do you ever sleep?”

“Yeah, _ obviously _,” he says, nodding emphatically. “Why wouldn't I be sleeping?”

He starts across the room but Munroe steps into his path, concern etched across his face, “I was kidding. You okay, Red?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Munroe lets up, “You wanna spar for awhile? It’s six now, the kids don’t usually start crawling in until closer to eight.”

“Let’s do it.”

They get a few rounds in that mostly turns into laughter because Munroe keeps comically over-exaggerating his punches, to which Archie responds by staggering backwards to the opposite side of the ring, and soon they’re laughing too hard to keep fighting.

They wind up sitting on top of the desk in the office, side by side, eating a breakfast feast consisting exclusively of cereal since that’s the only thing they ever have on hand. The minifridge in the office holds a delightful assortment of soda, cheap beer, and single gallon of milk.

Munroe keeps the conversation going and they chat about the upcoming school year and Archie’s weird friends and the trouble Munroe’s little brother has been getting into. It’s nice like this. Easy. They don’t talk about L&L, but they don’t need to say it by name. It’s there in the undercurrent, when they both feel the weight of the time they’ve missed and the disconnect between the people they’re around now and where they all were a year ago.

  
  


_ September. Now. _

“He’s a friend,” Archie says and finds it hard to look directly at Dr. Harper now, so he stares at her bookshelf and fixates on the texture of the plants while he talks, “We were in L&L together and we’ve been through a lot of the same stuff. He understands it, but he’s also been through it longer than me.”

“That sounds like it would be a good friendship for you to have after what you went through.”

“Yeah. He’s a good guy.”

“Do you have other support systems in your life? Besides Munroe?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I have three really good friends, but it’s-- it’s been harder than I thought. After L&L, I thought I’d be able to just pick up how things used to be and then I couldn’t, really.”

_ June. Before. _

He feels like he’s barely fallen asleep before Veronica’s shaking him awake, whispering something soft in his ear that he doesn’t catch right away. She’s tucked in behind him, has both arms wrapped around his chest and she’s rocking them back and forth. He’s been manhandled far too much in the last year to feel safe in the touch, but he doesn’t want to upset her. She’s _ trying_. He can hear her now, soft and warm, “Shh, shh, it’s just me. You’re safe. We’re camping with B and Jughead. You’re safe, lover, I’m right here.”

He tries to steady his breathing, but Veronica’s arms around him are still too restrictive and he can’t calm down with her holding him like this. He takes her hands as gently as he can manage and pulls them away.

“I’m okay, j-just let me up.”

Her arms retreat and Archie sucks in a lungful of air, scrambling to the opposite side of the tent.

The moonlight barely reaches the tent between the trees overhead, casting bizarre outlines across the space. He can make out Veronica’s face in the mix of shadows, a beam of light falling across her worried eyes as she watches him.

“Did I wake anyone else up?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she says quietly. “I woke you up as soon as you started-- When I heard you.”

At the start of summer, when they’d struck up their relationship up again, Veronica took to staying with him. At first she sneaked in through the window, always a little giddy over the classic teen rebellion trope (and more than once had commented with pride on their subversion of gender roles). After Fred caught them together one morning before Veronica had left and didn’t seem to mind either way, she started coming in through the front door like she owned the place. All smiles and “hello, Mr. Andrews” before trotting up to Archie’s room. On more than one occasion Fred had quietly wished them both goodnight before heading to bed himself. He never seemed resigned to it either. In fact, he seemed almost pleased. Archie wishes everything was as easy as his dad seemed to think.

“Archie,” Veronica says. “Things haven’t been getting better, have they?”

Archie shakes his head.

“I know it takes time to come back from something like that, but you’re almost the same as you were when you first got out of L&L. Am I doing something wrong? Or do you need us — me, Betty, Jug — to do something different?”

“No, it’s not you.”

“Well there has to be _ something,_” Veronica says, arms crossed. She wants to figure out a solution to something that isn't solvable the way most of her problems are. A band or a dinner or a party, those are easy to fix and she's truly a miracle worker, but Archie's shit isn't like that.

“Maybe there isn't, though. Maybe this is just me now. I’m not a project you can wave your Veronica wand over and magically make better, you know.”

“I never said you were a project. You’re my boyfriend, I’m trying to help.”

Trying being the key word because she isn't helping. “Every night, you stay over, you sleep in my bed, and you never even asked if that’s what I needed.”

“I was being there for you. You didn’t tell me to stop.”

“I didn’t know how!”

Veronica flinches back and a beat of silence follows before she says, quietly, “I won’t stay over anymore then. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

The momentary unburdened relief he feels is immediately quashed by a rush of guilt. Veronica looks close to tears on her side of the tent, drawing her legs up to her chest and pulling the sweater she borrowed from him more tightly around her.

“You shouldn’t wait for me to get better,” Archie says. “You deserve a boyfriend who’d be thrilled with you staying over to take care of him.”

“No, don’t do this again.”

“I have to. I can’t do this-- _us-- _right now.”

“Okay. But then it’s over for good,” Veronica says insistently, more anger in her voice than pain now. “I won’t do the on-again/off-again thing anymore. No Ross and Rachel crap. It’s not a break, it’s over.”

“You’re right.”

“And I really don’t want to be right now,” she says. He can see the tears oncoming and he knows he can't be here for that. There's nothing he can say to make it better, so he murmurs an apology and makes himself scarce.

Which is how he winds up in Betty and Jughead’s tent at three in the morning. They both wake up at the sound of the zipper and peer blearily at him before exchanging a look with each other.

“Well, come on then, pal,” Jughead says, jokingly moving over to make room for Archie between them, an act that earns him a slap on the arm from Betty.

“Sorry, I-- I just can’t be in the other tent right now,” Archie says.

“Do I need to go check on her?” Betty asks, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and wiggling out of her sleeping bag.

“Probably.”

“Okay; I probably won’t be back then. You can sleep here with Jug,” She kisses Jughead on the cheek and crawls out of the sleeping bag, patting Archie on the shoulder as she clambers past him through the tent flap.

“That went way faster than I expected,” Archie says, still standing in the entrance of the tent.

“Yeah. Well. I owe her twenty bucks now, so.”

“What was the bet?”

“Whether we’d get woken up with loud sex or someone trying to come sleep with us post-breakup. She was obviously team breakup, she’d guessed you guys were on the rocks before we left.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s not our finest moment,” Jughead admits.

Archie’s too tired to lecture him about it and he’s not sure how much moral high ground there is to be had when he just dumped Veronica for being too supportive of a girlfriend. He curls up in Betty’s empty spot, facing away from Jughead to stare at the side of the tent.

“I ended it. I had to, Jug. It’s been bad ever since I got back.”

“Veronica’s made of tough stuff; she’ll be fine,” Jughead says lightly, and then, in a more serious tone, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” An lie so obvious Archie’s sure if he looked over at Jughead, he’d see the worry in his eyes. But he doesn’t look. He closes his eyes and shifts in the sleeping bag, hoping Jughead will think he’s falling asleep. He’s too wired for it in reality and even if he wasn’t, the thought of accidentally waking Jughead up if he has a nightmare is mortifying.

Jughead’s breathing starts to get heavier beside him and from the other tent he can hear Betty and Veronica talking in a warm, even murmur. He wants to run in to apologize to Veronica. And he wants to roll over to ask Jughead if they can sleep holding hands like they used to whenever they shared a bed when they were kids. And stronger than either of those is the desire to slip out of the tent and take off sprinting into the woods.

He doesn’t.

_ September. Now. _

“They’re good friends. They try, even if they don’t get it all the time. They’re there when it matters.” 

“I’m happy to hear that. And how are things with your mother?”

“We haven’t been close in years; she left when I was eight. She’s only back because my dad-- My dad died.”

“That’s recent, isn’t it?” Dr. Harper jots something down on the clipboard and looks up again.

“About a month ago. Car accident.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. That must be incredibly difficult to go through on top of everything else happening.”

“It feels like I can’t catch a break. One bad thing happens after another and it’s just over and over again. And this is-- It’s my _ dad _. I almost lost him last year, I thought that was enough of a scare, but then there’s this too and it’s just-- It’s bullshit. I’m tired of bad things happening.”

“As you should be. Anyone would be exhausted after what you’ve been through. Losing a parent is an impossible thing, but your circumstances--”

“It’s too big. He was the thing I could always come back to whenever everything got too much and he’s not there anymore. Even when we were fighting, I knew he was going to be there. And now he’s just gone.”

“Have you talked much about your dad since he passed?”

“Yeah, all the time.” Over dinner, with his friends, in passing. Fred’s the only reason he’s doing anything at this point.

“That’s good. Some people have the tendency to shut down. But remembering our loved ones helps, especially with other people,” Dr. Harper glances down at her watch, “We’re just about out of time. Your mother scheduled this appointment and the next four. She also filled out some intake forms, but I’d like you to fill out some as well, just to give me a better idea about what’s on your mind or what might be helpful for us to focus on in our work together.”

He takes the offered manila folder.

“How do you feel about all this?” she asks.

“Not as bad as I was expecting.”

Dr. Harper nods, getting to her feet and motioning toward the office door, “Hopefully I can be helpful. That’s what this is for, so if there’s ever something I say or do that’s not helpful, just tell me. I’m not here to fix you, I’m here to help.”

“Thanks,” Archie says and thinks he even means it. He tucks the envelope under his arm and slips out of the office.

Mary’s practically waiting for him at the door as soon as he gets back home, smiling hopefully and forcibly casual when she asks, “How was it? Do you want to go back?”

“I don’t know," he answers truthfully. “But I’ll go until I’m through the first month of school, like we agreed. And you’ll sign my football permission slip?”

“Already done!” Mary slides the paper across the kitchen counter to him.

Archie adds it on top of the envelope, “You know you didn’t have to hold sports hostage to get me to go to therapy.”

Mary hides a guilty look by becoming engrossed in the spam mail on the counter and Archie’s a little satisfied at that.

Five days later, after Mary bugs him repeatedly about it, Archie sits at this desk to fill out the forms. As he peruses through them, he notes it’s mostly stuff like listing his family information, naming his family of choice (the phrasing of which makes him smile before he starts writing down_ Jughead, Betty, Veronica, Munroe_), education details, what his mood has been like over the last two weeks. One of them asks him to list any significant events of the last year.

_ Classmate murdered. _ Jason’s death was sort of the catalyst for all this, after all. _ Saw film of classmate getting murdered. Saw dad get shot. Ex-girlfriend murdered. _ He stops, remembering Grundy and then going back and scribbling in near the top _ Affair with teacher. _

_ Almost buried alive. Almost shot someone. Robbed at gunpoint with friends. Almost shot someone again. Falsely accused of murder. Spent 4 months in juvie. Illegal underground fighting ring. Shivved. _ He’d been kissed by a friend-- a _ guy _ friend right before, but was that really a “significant” event? Probably not, so he doesn’t write it down even though he stops to think about it for a solid five minutes. He keeps writing. _ Escaped juvie. Fugitive of the law/Ex-girlfriend’s dad trying to kill me. Mauled by a bear. Dad killed in a car accident. _

He stares at the list and nearly laughs. It’s so long. Reggie’s voice enters into his mind, un-fucking-invited, _ No wonder you’re all messed up. _ Archie crumples the form into a ball and hurls it across the room without thinking.

He looks down at the other, completed forms and realizes the problem.

_ Hi Dr. Harper, _

_ My dog Vegas ate the forms you sent me. _

He glares at his phone and deletes the sentence, then tries again.

_ Hi Dr. Harper, _

_ Can you send me a pdf copy of the forms from last week? I think I lost them at school. _

_ Thanks, _

_ Archie Andrews _

Twenty minutes later he gets a ding from his email with an attachment to the forms. On the new page, he writes _ Four months in juvie. Dad passed away. _ and leaves it at that.


	2. senior year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Munroe's fresh start.

It’s Archie’s idea, though it admittedly doesn’t taken that much to talk Munroe into going back to school. Munroe might be a year older than most of the other kids, but it's not unheard of to repeat senior year and a few of the other upperclassman apparently had to repeat after their grades slipped during the recent turmoil in Riverdale.

The morning of the first day back, Munroe spends too much time deciding which of his shirts is objectively the most boring, hoping he can blend in enough that most of the kids won’t recognize him as one of the kids out of L&L. He’s sure his friendship with Archie will clue somebody in eventually and rumors will start up faster than he'd like, but he wants to hold that off as long as possible.

His phone dings with a text and Archie’s sent him a message that reads: **see you at school!!**

Munroe replies with a smiley face and slips his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, grabs his backpack beside his door, and starts into the kitchen.

His grandma is already up, sitting at the kitchen table with Malcolm, who’s wolfing down cereal. Gran peeks up at him over her paper, “You ready to go?”

Munroe nods. She gets out of her chair, tucks the paper under her arm, and looks him over with a small frown before she reaches out to fix the collar of his shirt.

“Bus’ll be here in ten, you should both be out the door already,” she admonishes, but there’s a hint of pride in her eyes.

Malcolm tosses his bowl into the sink with a clatter, still chewing as he grabs his backpack from the couch.

“Look after him,” Gran warns as he disappears out the door.

It’s still warm enough in early September that they don’t need jackets while they wait for the bus at seven in the morning. Malcolm is engrossed in his phone and hasn’t said a word to Munroe all morning, which isn’t really uncommon for their relationship post-juvie. Come to think of it, it wasn’t uncommon for their relationship pre-juvie either. Malcolm was always a distant kid and Munroe had other things going on at the time.

He nudges Malcolm while they wait and asks, “So… freshmen year. You ready?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Malcolm says dismissively. “You’re not gonna sit near me on the bus, are you?”

“I guess not.”

“Okay good. I don’t want you freaking out my friends.”

“How would I freak out your friends?”

Malcom rolls his eyes and doesn’t offer an explanation. The bus creaks up to the apartment building from around a corner before Munroe can question him further. Malcolm scrambles aboard and beelines it to the back of the bus. Munroe decides to make himself at home a few seats in front of him, close enough to hear their conversation.

“How was your summer?” one of the boys Malcolm sits with asks.

“Not much, just me and my grandma like usual,” Malcolm says. “Tell me about New York though!”

“You just want to know what we saw on Broadway,” the boy says. “It’s okay, Mal, we know you’re a huge gay nerd.”

“Shut up,” Mal says, with no real force behind it. He sounds like he's laughing, even. “How was it though?”

The other kids laugh and a chatter picks up among the group of kids about vacations and sports, which Malcolm comments on comfortably. In the fifteen minute bus ride, Malcolm says more to his friends than he’s said to Munroe in the literal months since he’s gotten out of L&L. Malcolm doesn’t talk about his own life much though, doesn’t mention his brother fresh out of juvie or helping out cleaning the gym or the roadtrip the three of them had taken to visit family up in Centerville.

The bus stops and the kids get out. Munroe stays in his seat until Malcolm’s cleared out and follows behind until most of his friends have dispersed into the school.

“Your friends don’t know me or they don’t know I exist?” Munroe asks, snagging Malcolm back his backpack before he follow after his friends.

Malcolm wheels back around on Munroe, annoyed, “You were going to be locked up for twenty years, why would I tell them you exist?”

“Do they know _anything_ about you?”

“More than you do,” Malcolm shoots back. “And none of them live with their grandma in a shitty apartment on the southside. You were gone, Grandma was working. I’d rather be hanging out with them than in that apartment alone and I didn’t think they’d want to keep hanging with me if they knew where I lived.”

“If they didn’t, you should’ve gotten better friends.”

“It’s not that easy. God, Munroe, you’re so— Can I go, please?” Malcolm gestures to the door. “I’m gonna be late for class.”

Munroe nods and watches Malcolm disappear into the school before he digs his crumpled schedule out of his pocket.

“Hey! Munroe!” Archie strides toward him from the parking lot, waving him down. He comes to a stop beside Munroe, looking up at the school, “You ready, man?”

“Absolutely,” he says, and can hear how unconvincing he sounds.

Archie settles a hand on Munroe’s shoulder, the weight of it warm and reassuring, “Let’s do this.”

They were meticulous about getting their schedules to match when signing up for classes over the summer. They share first period English, second period geometry, and a lunch period which takes them through most of the first half of the day together. There’s nothing together after lunch, but hopefully by that point Munroe’s flight or fight instincts will have calmed down and he’ll be able to sit through class like a normal person.

The English teacher, Ms. Richards, doesn’t assign seating, so they take up two desks on the right side of the class, a few rows back. The other students filter into the classroom and Munroe thinks he recognizes a few of the other students from appearances at the gym over the summer.

It’s mostly going over the semester and talking about expectations, which already feels different from the paltry educational offerings at L&L. There’s actual books, for one thing. Ms. Richards hands out copies of _ The Count of Monte Cristo_, which Munroe’s already read (and then hollowed out and kept a rock hammer in, because L&L was like that). Archie catches his eye as soon as they’re passed out and gives a knowing wink.

Second period is geometry, which is almost entirely sophomores except for him and Archie. Third period is social studies, which doesn’t have Archie but does have Veronica, who sits next to him, though she’s quickly joined by a gaggle of cheerleaders who occupy her attention. Munroe’s glad for the company anyway and Veronica does her best to include him in the scattered conversation before the class starts and is more or less a repeat of the other classes’ overview of the semester.

“You’re coming with us to lunch, right?” Veronica asks after the bell rings and they’re gathering up their stuff. The way she says it doesn’t make it seem like much of a question, rather politely informing him that he has lunch plans now.

She leads him to a table where Archie is already sitting across from Betty and Jughead. Another boy he doesn’t recognize sits on the bench next to Archie. Munroe and Veronica drag chairs over to take seats on the two free sides of the table opposite each other.

“Kev, this is my friend Munroe,” Archie tells the other boy. “Munroe, this is Kevin.”

“Hey,” Kevin gives a short wave. “So you’re the boxing hunk Archie never shuts up about.”

Betty snorts, “Coming on strong much, Kev?”

“Okay, just because I’m rebounding from Fangs post-cult—” he stops and leans toward Munroe past Archie to clarify, “I was in a cult with my ex-boyfriend, long story— Just because I’m rebounding, doesn’t mean I’m hitting on people. I call Archie hot all the time and I’m not hitting on him.”

“Wait,_ you’re not_?” Archie's jaw drops in feigned shock.

“Not everything is about you,” Kevin says dismissively. He glances down at his phone, “I should go. Cheryl’s got the first QSA meeting of the year scheduled for a prompt 12:15 and if I want to keep vice president of a school club on my college resume...”

“On the first day back?” Veronica asks.

“Cheryl runs the show with an iron fist. And since Fangs is still deprogramming and the psych ward, I think it’ll be me, Cheryl, Toni, and Peaches. Which makes it more D.E.B.S. than Love, Simon, but if I’m around you guys for too long I start to feel like I’m in G.B.F., so I’m gonna go hang with the crime lesbians.” He slides out of his chair, “Nice meeting you, Munroe.”

Kevin disappears out of the cafeteria and Veronica takes up Kevin’s empty spot next to Archie and across from Betty. “So how’s everyone’s first day back?”

The group quickly jumps into recounting the first half of the day and Munroe listens curiously. It feels so banal after L&L, but he thinks he kind of loves it. Jughead derails the conversation by getting into a debate about journalistic integrity with Betty that he only understands about a third of because it’s clear this is an ongoing topic of conversation for them.

“Mainstream news outlets can’t be trusted when all they care about is the bottom line.”

“But neither can small town outlets! My family’s paper has always been biased and there’s no oversight to prevent them from spewing whatever garbage they think will benefit them. At least with mainstream media, there’s standards.”

“_Standards _?” Jughead laughs derisively.

“This is about Betty majoring in journalism,” Archie leans in and stage-whispers. “Jug thinks it’s beneath her.”

“In fifteen years, I’ll be the next Rachel Maddow,” Betty says, still locked-in on Jughead, “And you’ll be my trophy husband and I’ll joke about how when we were in high school you didn’t support me going to school for journalism on every late night talk show until my rabid fans bully you off twitter.”

“You’ve thought this through way too much,” Archie says, rubbing his eyes.

“She has,” Veronica confirms. “Jughead’s a one hit wonder novelist and she leaves him during a mid-life crisis for a sexy entrepreneurial, philanthropist, UN ambassador who also happens to be her former high school best friend.”

“That last part is your fantasy,” Betty says.

“_Our _ fantasy, B,” Veronica says, reaching across the table and taking Betty’s hand in hers, “Trust me, it'll blow up your career even more.”

Munroe expects Betty to pull her hand away, but instead she brings her other hand up to the table and pats the top of Veronica’s hand. Jughead seems unbothered by the exchange; his eyes are elsewhere anyway:

“Where’s Archie in all of this?” Jughead asks.

“Dead,” Archie deadpans. “Courtesy of one of Riverdale’s serial killers.”

Veronica smacks his arm, “Archie Andrews is the most beloved mayor Riverdale has ever had and there's constant rumors of him running for congress.”

Archie laughs, “Okay sure. I’ll be the first high school dropout elected to congress.”

“Well, actually--” Jughead starts and Betty elbows him.

“You better not drop out,” Munroe says, nudging his shin under the table with his foot. “Or I’m right behind you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I won’t,” Archie says, rubbing his eyes and sighing, “God, I want this year over with so bad.”

There’s a weight to the way he says it and considering it’s the first day back. It feels like a bad omen for the rest of the year.

“We’ll make the most of it,” Veronica says, slipping one of her hands out of Betty’s to reach over and put a hand on Archie’s shoulder. “Wait ‘til you all hear what I’ve got planned for La Bonne Nuit.”

As she launches into a detailed explanation of her event calendar, Archie turns his head away from Veronica and grimaces so only Munroe catches it. Veronica’s chatter takes up most of the rest of the lunch period and before long they’re rushing to put away their trays. Betty and Jughead exchange a quick kiss and they’re all heading separate ways to classes.

He thinks Spanish will be okay. There were a few kids at L&L who had Spanish as a first language and he picked up a little from talking with them (none of the guards knew it, so it’d been a way to talk privately and frankly saved their asses on multiple occasions). The placement tests he’d taken over the summer had even put him in a higher level class than he’d expected. The teacher’s Spanish is more formalized than he’s used to and there’s a considerably lower number of expletives peppered into her speech than the kids at L&L, so he can only sort of keep up and doesn’t trust himself to speak up in class. The other kids don’t seem to have the same trouble.

After the bell rings, Archie snags his arm as he’s leaving class, “Hey! I think we have the same free period; do you want to come track down Coach Clayton with me?”

“Football coach?”

Archie nods a confirmation, already pulling him down the hall toward the locker rooms.

“How was Spanish?” Archie asks as they walk.

“Terrible. How was French?”

“Terrible,” Archie echoes. “I can’t believe I let Veronica talk me into it last year.”

They round the corner into the locker room. A man Munroe assumes to be Coach Clayton is there, chatting with a couple of the kids.

“Coach, this is my friend Munroe,” Archie says, gesturing to Munroe, his face breaking into a brilliant smile that makes Munroe feel strange about the fact that it’s _ him _Archie’s apparently smiling about, “And you’d be out of your mind to not put him on the team.”

Coach Clayton gives a soft chuckle and gives Munroe a once-over, “Show us what you got at tryouts next week.”

“I’ll be there,” Munroe says.

“Thanks coach,” Archie says, then claps Munroe on the shoulder. Munroe gives the coach an aborted wave as Archie drags him back out of the locker room.

“What are you doing the rest of your free period?” Archie asks once they’re back in the hall. There’s a hopefulness to his tone and Munroe knows his plans to lurk outside somewhere are going to be put on hold. Before he can reply, Archie asks, “Want to ditch the rest of the day? I might actually go insane if I have to stay in this building another two hours.”

“Ditching on the first day?”

“I’m not trying to be a model student, I’m just trying to graduate,” Archie says. “Come on. Don’t let me be an almost-drop out with no future alone.”

Munroe gives in with a shrug and Archie grins before they take off toward the parking lot.

At first, Munroe thinks they’re headed to El Royale, but Archie keeps driving until they’re heading out of the town limits. “There’s a viewpoint about twenty minutes out of town off this back highway. It should be dead this time of day.”

“What about the gym?”

“We’ll be back in time for it to open.”

And so they go. Twenty minutes later, Archie backs the truck up into the viewpoint. The engine rumbles as it shuts off and Archie reaches into the back to snag his backpack and hops out. Munroe follows him around to the truck bed and stops before climbing in, staring out over the view of the canyon: there's an entire forest below them, with a river that must be Sweetwater River running through it.

Archie offers Munroe a hand up and the two settle in. There’s a blanket and a couple sleeping bags lying haphazardly around the space and he draws the blanket up across his lap, wondering how long it's all been there and if it has anything to do with Archie’s other sleeping bag at the gym that Munroe pretends he doesn’t know about.

Archie starts rifling through his backpack and retrieves a binder Munroe recognizes immediately from pouring over it with Archie for hours this summer. It’s the record keeping and planning binder he’d started to put together for the community center.

He rests it across his lap, takes the cap of his pen off with his teeth, then begins flipping through the pages of record-keeping. How many kids they’re seeing each week, what kind of services they offer now, what they could offer. Potential volunteers. Potential donors. Munroe’s started doing a bit of math on what it’d take for them to hire paid staff and it seems impossible right now, but maybe one day. Which, it feels funny that he's thinking that far ahead, like there might actually be a future for him to look forward to.

Archie gets to an envelope tucked into the back of the binder and pulls out a stack of paperwork from inside, groaning the second he sees what it is. He sets his pen down and turns to Munroe, “So my mom said she’d help me proofread stuff for the community center, but I have to do all the heavy lifting which means I have to do all the write ups and fill out all the paperwork and it’s-- it’s so much. There’s all these permits and we need a board of directors and _ bylaws _and crap.”

“Do you want me to look at it?” Munroe asks.

Archie hands over the envelope, “Sorry. This was supposed to be a break, but it’s the only thing I can think about.”

“I’d rather do this out here than do homework back at school.”

Munroe flips through the paperwork idly, scanning over it. There’s a sticky note in at the top in handwriting too nice to be Archie’s that says _ file articles of incorporation first! _

He sorts through the paperwork and while a lot of it is unquestionably legal-eese neither he nor Archie will be able to parse through, some of it makes at least a little sense. They’ll have to file paperwork to be an official organization, file more paperwork to be tax-exempt. They’ll have to check that everything is up to code for what they want to do with the building. File more paperwork. More paperwork. And then some more paperwork.

“We’re gonna need another binder,” Munroe says.

“You still up for doing this with me? It’s less badass than I thought it was going to be four months ago,” he says it so seriously. Munroe wants to laugh at him, except he can’t because there’s a soft sort of ache in his chest and all he can do is grin. Archie’s an idiot. Both for thinking starting a community center would be badass and for thinking Munroe would back out.

“Sorry, you’re stuck with me, Red.”

“Good,” Archie says, then dumps the entire binder onto his lap. “Please help me.”

Archie’s grinning his brilliant smile again and Munroe has to duck his head and start flipping through the binder or he’s sure his own smile would give him away. He’s not ready for Archie to know about his feelings. Not now, when their friendship is so important. His feelings for Archie are complicated anyway, all tied up in shared trauma and their mutual hero complexes. They don’t have to _ mean _anything.

He forces laughter and starts reorganizing the binder, stealing some of Archie’s sticky notes to help categorize their files. They can make a to-do list and work from there. Looking at the enormity of the community center project, they'll be in this together for the long haul and for Munroe, that's more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't edit this as much as i wanted so im sure ill be back to clean it up later but. anyway! more fic!


	3. dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another therapy session. the andrews have munroe over for dinner.

Archie spends Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon at the gym as soon as school lets out. He and Munroe are in the process of arranging their schedules with Mr. Keller (who keeps telling Archie to call him Tom, but Archie will do no such thing). Between the three of them, someone’s always around and they’ve been working out an agreement with Mr. Keller that allows him to use the gym for some personal training work he’s been doing on the side, so long as he stays for at least a few days every week to help run the after school programs they’ve been steadily planning for the kids.

Archie’s struggled to keep his attention focused during the process so far, but Mr. Keller is always in good spirits about it and Munroe seems to like problem solving with the schedule, so Archie mostly sits back and watches them talk.

On Wednesday, Munroe drags his little brother with them, to Malcolm’s clear annoyance, but apparently Munroe’s grandma is working until late and Munroe doesn’t want him home alone for that long. Malcolm hunches over in the backseat of the truck, hanging onto his phone.

“If boxing isn’t your thing, do you play any other sports?” Archie tries to strike up a conversation as they drive to the gym.

Malcolm peeks up from his phone in the backseat of the car, answering with a curt, “Nope.”

“You should try getting in the ring,” Munroe says.

“No, thank you,” Malcolm doesn’t bother looking up this time.

Malcolm spends the rest of the day sitting in a corner of the gym doing his homework, shooting an annoyed look at Munroe every so often for the crime of forcing him to spend time with his brother. They don’t even stay that late, but Malcolm’s clearly itching to go the moment he sits down.

“He’s a good kid. I mean, a really good kid,” Munroe says as they’re starting to pack up the gym that night, quiet so Malcolm can’t hear them. “Pretty good grades, always polite, but I don’t know what to do with him. Not a huge fan of his friends as it stands.”

“Bunch of rich kids, right?”

“No offense to your rich friends--”

“I only have one rich friend; Veronica is the exception and she’s got a big heart.”

“Yeah, I'm sure you love how big her _heart_ is.”

“Shut up,” Archie elbows him and Munroe laughs.

When Friday morning rolls around, Archie falls into step beside Munroe as they make their way to English together and realizes he’ll have to explain why he can’t give Munroe a ride to the gym that day. Therapy is starting to feel routine, but he hasn’t really brought it up to anyone yet, not even Betty or Jughead. Before the start of school, it’d been easy enough to make plans at other times, but now that his time is more limited, he’s going to have to admit where he’s going eventually.

“So this afternoon,” Archie hedges. Munroe looks over at him and he feels uncertain suddenly, and hears himself asking, “Do you want to come over for dinner?”

Munroe agrees, looking at Archie curiously, but if he notices the hesitancy in Archie’s voice, he doesn’t say anything about it.

The rest of the day passes without much fanfare. In the parking lot, Archie texts Mary: ** Munroe’s coming over, can u make dinner tonight?** followed by texting Munroe an apology that he won’t be going to the gym since he’s going to help his mom with dinner, then shuts his phone off and takes his truck directly to Dr. Harper’s office.

He drops down into the chair while she makes herself a cup of tea that will soon be set off to the side and forgotten. Archie’s not sure he’s ever seen her drink any of the tea she’s made since he’s been here, but maybe it's the motions of making it that are half the soothing effect. He wonders if he should make tea for his mom sometime and see if that does anything for him when he’s getting antsy.

“How was your week back?” Dr. Harper asks as she sits down and, as he predicted, discards the cup of tea to the side to set her clipboard onto her lap.

He lets himself talk without thinking too much about it, every stray thought that’s bubbled up inside him for the past week coming out all at once, starting with a confession to ditching with Munroe on the first day.

“I attended all the rest of my classes this week,” Archie rushes to explain, but Dr. Harper just smiles at him.

She doesn’t give him a guilt trip about it (like Archie knows Mary would) and tells him, “I think that makes sense” which might be his favorite phrase of hers since it makes him feel generally less stupid. “I encourage plenty of my adult clients to take mental health ‘sick days’ when they need it in their professional lives. I think that idea works for school too. As long as you’re being responsible with it.”

And he is, or at least he’s _ trying _to be responsible.

He continues on about classes being too long and the disquiet he feels, how everything seems so trivial. Dr. Harper listens more than anything else, reframes whatever he’s saying so it sounds less insane than when he’s rambling about how the way his social studies teacher cracks his knuckles puts him on edge because one of the guards at L&L used to do the same thing.

“And I don’t have that class with Munroe so I don’t know if it actually sounds exactly like Peterson or if I’m just making it up.”

“If Munroe wasn’t reminded of it, what would that mean?”

“That I’m overreacting and being crazy.”

“So how he feels is your litmus test to whether or not how you feel is valid?”

“Litmus test?”

Dr. Harper shifts in her seat, smoothing out her skirt thoughtfully before she says, “When Munroe feels the same way you do about something, you think that makes it rational.”

Archie doesn’t like the way she says it, even if there’s no judgement in her voice, “We went through a lot of the same things. If something freaks him out, it feels like maybe whatever’s happening to me is a normal reaction to what we went through.”

“That makes sense,” Dr. Harper says. “Has he ever talked about a trigger-- a feeling, if you want-- that you don’t have in response to something? Or if he hasn’t, imagine it. Would you think he was overreacting?”

“He hasn’t talked to me about anything like that, but he was there a lot longer than I was. If something came up, it’d make sense, I’m sure there’s stuff he went through that I didn’t.”

“Archie, you and Munroe have a lot of shared trauma, but your responses to that trauma aren’t going to be identical. Different brains react different ways. What upsets you might not upset him and vice versa. It’s good to share in what you have, to support each other, but you can’t hold him up as an example of what’s normal. Whatever you experience is what you experience. There’s no ‘normal.’”

Archie sits with that for awhile, even as their conversation turns to the rest of school and his other friendships. _ There’s no normal, _ he tries to tell himself as he gets into the truck and checks his phone.

There’s a few messages from Munroe:

**OK. ill take the bus back w/mal**

Then, ten minutes later: **when do u want me to come over?**

And five minutes after that: ** do u need help with dinner?**

Archie smiles and texts quickly: **sorry again! 6 should be okay?**

Mary isn’t as at home in the kitchen as Fred had been, but she has one solid chicken recipe she breaks out whenever they’re trying to impress friends and it doesn’t take too long to make. Archie makes a pit stop at Trader Moe’s for a few ingredients Mary requested before he heads home.

“I have to say, I miss seeing Veronica around here,” Mary says as she sets a pot of water on the stove to boil. “I’m glad you have other friends, but when your dad and I talked, he seemed to think she was doing you a lot of good.”

“Yeah, well, it’s over now,” Archie hands her a box of rotini.

“But you were the one who ended it, right?”

“Yeah. And I still-- Do we have to talk about this right now?” Archie asks, feeling the guilt over how things ended with Veronica creeping back up into his chest. He leans back against the counter, folds his arms, and tries to sound firm when he says, “It’s not happening again. We care about each other, but it’s just not-- It’s not where either of us are at right now.”

“I know, sweetie, it’s just--”

Archie moves to the stove, “I can man the pasta while the chicken’s cooking and we can help you clean up dishes after. Thanks for everything else, Mom.”

Mary takes the hint with a sigh and quietly backs out of the kitchen in defeat. Archie goes through the motions of making pasta until it’s cooked and draining in a colander in the sink, at which point Mary slips back in to help finish the chicken. Just as everything gets set out, there’s a quiet knock at the front door.

“So you’re the famous Munroe,” Mary says with a smile.

“Mrs. Andrews,” Munroe greets politely, shifting a bit as he stands in the doorway. “Thanks for having me over.”

The three of them are soon settled around the table, Archie and Munroe opposite Mary. Mary grills them on how school is and Munroe seems to relax as they get further into the meal, grinning when Mary asks him a question about his family, especially when his little brother comes up.

“I’d love to hear some Chicago stories, though,” Munroe says. “Archie in the big city? Can’t picture it.”

Mary stares down at her plate and Archie feels his stomach twist, “I’ve never been to Chicago, actually.”

“Oh. I just thought, since Mrs. Andrews--”

“Call me Mary, Munroe,” she says softly. “And it’s just a little complicated. I never had much time off outside of holidays and I didn’t want to get between Archie and his dad during those times.”

She never bothered to ask him either, not that she says that part. She looks guilty now, but it doesn’t matter because Archie’s done the math before and he knows she didn’t ask him because she was still hurt about him picking Fred over her. The only reason she’s even in his life now is because Fred is gone and neither of them have another choice.

The weight of how much he misses Fred drops all at once and he swallows, staring at the table, trying to blink back tears until he realizes he can’t. He’s up like a shot, muttering something about needing air, though he ends up his room instead.

He’s only alone for a couple minutes before Munroe is there, leaning against the doorframe, “I’m so sorry, Red.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Archie says. “Weird family drama. There’s always some perfectly normal topic you can’t actually talk about.”

Munroe frowns at something where behind Archie is sitting. Archie follows Munroe’s gaze to the guitar propped against the wall. “Don’t tell me you can play guitar too?” Munroe asks, teasing.

“I picked it up a couple years ago,” Archie says and his brain is already so frazzled and unfiltered that a memory of Geraldine-Jennifer springs to mind unbidden and he has to take a moment to steady himself before saying, “But, uh, I haven’t played since I got out. I want to though? My dad soundproofed the garage so I could practice, I really want to try getting back into it. I think.”

“You should show me sometime.”

Archie can picture it, sort of, the pair of them sitting in the garage while Archie plays some chords and sings. He should find out what kind of music Munroe likes. If his hands weren’t shaking, he’d probably offer to play, but he doesn’t want to be in this house right now. “Do you want to hit the gym? Spar for awhile or something?”

Munroe agrees and they’re out the door before Mary can protest.

It’s a too-long sparring session and by the time they’ve hit the showers and are dressed again, Archie can feel the ache in his muscles.

“It’s a Friday night,” Munroe says, pulling a shirt over his head in the locker rooms. “You headed to Pop’s or something?”

“Think I’m gonna call it a night. You want a ride back home?”

Munroe shrugs, “If you’re headed out that way.”

_ If_. He has to know.

“I-- I’m not, actually. My sleeping bag is in the locker room,” Archie says and Munroe does his best to look surprised, for which Archie is deeply grateful. “I, uh, sleep here sometimes. Not as much after my dad died, because Mom wants me home but. Sometimes, it’s just easier.”

“Okay. You want some company?”

Sleeping at the gym with someone else defeats the purpose of sleeping at the gym at all, but Archie finds himself saying yes anyway. Munroe, it turns out, also has a sleeping bag in his locker for reasons he won’t disclose, though Archie’s pretty sure he couldn’t have been sleeping here. Unless he was?

There’s a couple creaky cots they set up in the office next to each other. They turn off the lights and stumble their way back over to them. Munroe trips over a stray dumbbell that had somehow been left on the floor of the office and goes stumbling into Archie, which makes them both start laughing, leaning against each other as they grope their way toward the cots in the dark.

Once they’re both finally settled, bodies lined up in opposite directions, Munroe mutters, “Could’ve just turned on the light on your phone.”

Archie doesn’t appreciate the belated obvious solution and takes the opportunity to shove his foot in Munroe’s face. Munroe shoves it away hard enough Archie nearly falls off the cot, which sends them both into a fit of laughter again. It’s a good feeling in his chest, but as the giggles subside, so does the momentary relief and his brain feels like it’s spiraling. Archie stares up at the ceiling, thinks about every inch of the gym that he’s worked so carefully to memorize the past few months.

“Hiram Lodge gave me this building,” Archie says. “Even _ this _ isn’t-- It isn’t a simple, good thing. The person who gave it to me hurt a lot of people and I-- Sometimes I think maybe it’d be better to just burn the whole thing to the ground, be done with it. It’s like everything I have is connected to something bad. Music, boxing, the gym. None of it’s _ mine_.”

Munroe sits up, drawing his legs up and shifting until he’s sitting sideways on the cot, facing Archie, “It doesn’t have to be black and white like that. Good can come out of something bad. What L&L did to us was evil, but we--”

Munroe stops, eyes locked with his and Archie thinks, _We’re something good_. You’re _good and I don’t understand how anyone could be in a place like that._

“We’re building the center together,” Munroe says. “We should change the name when we open it. Give it a fresh start and make something good out of something bad.”

“We could name it after my dad.”

“Yeah. Andrews Community Center. That’d be something you could pass on.”

Archie can’t picture having kids, not like he used to picture it, but something about the idea of telling some distant generation of kids about the place he and Munroe built for them sends a jolt of excitement through him that he hasn’t felt about the future in a long, long time.

“It’s yours too,” Archie says. “It’s not just my thing, we’re doing this together.”

“Trust me, we do not need to honor my dad,” Munroe says with a laugh that doesn’t sound nearly as light as he clearly wants it to be.

“You’ve never told me about him,” Archie says and Munroe doesn’t reply back. The length of their sparring match finally starts to sink in and he can’t seem to keep his eyes open.

Archie wakes up with a start halfway through the night, when some part of his brain catches up through the exhaustion and reminds his subconscious why he sleeps at the gym in the first place. He sits up in the cot, looking around, trying to collect himself enough to gauge whether or not he’s already had a night terror. His heart is pounding and his hands shake where they’re fisted in his sleeping bag, but he suspects it’s more from the panic of waking himself up. Munroe appears to still be sleeping, though it’s dark enough Archie can’t tell if his eyes are open or not and he’s not about to check too closely for fear of actually waking him up.

He lies back down, careful this time not to fall asleep and listens to Munroe’s breathing, remembering their conversation before they’d fallen asleep. He runs through possible names for the center in his head until the sun starts to creep through the windows.

This place is _ theirs _ and he wants whatever theoretical future generation wanders in someday to know that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for my goldfinch and it ch2 homages. they didn't happen on purpose, but think of it as me being true to the spirit of riverdale in referencing things that maybe dont make sense to be referenced in context.


	4. QSA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coming out, sort of.

Munroe is starting to drift off when he hears Archie’s cry -- not words, just a garbled, terrified noise -- and jolts upright, scanning for an intruder. The room is empty, save for the two of them, and Archie’s still on his cot, twisting in his sleeping bag, crying out, not quite a scream but still too-loud and too-scared.

“_No, stop-- Stop, let me go! Stop, I-- _” Archie breaks off into a series of short, hitching gasps. Munroe’s heart clenches in his chest. He stops short of reaching over to wake him, remembering his own streak of nightmares after L&L and the handful of times that Mal had woken him in the middle of the night before giving up because it never helped. Archie likely won’t even remember it in the morning, Munroe rationalizes to himself.

There’s a whimper in Archie’s breathing and whether it will help or not, Munroe can’t sit by and do nothing, so he lies back down on the cot, this time with his head by Archie’s.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re safe,” he murmurs, keeping his voice low enough not to wake him, but hopefully gentle enough to push him out of the nightmare. “Shhh, you’re okay, Red.”

He keeps murmuring, quiet and steady, and eventually Archie’s breathing evens back out, his expression smoothing over.

Archie jerks awake later in the night, but he settles down again quickly, though he tosses back and forth on the cot enough that Munroe is certain he doesn’t fall back asleep. Twenty minutes after sunlight begins to fill the office, Archie makes a show of waking up and moving about the office. Munroe copies the action and the pair make their way into the gym to get in a quick sparring match before they head home. 

The first few weeks of school pass in a blur. He and Archie should be sick of each other, given they’re together constantly between the three classes, setting up the community center, plus the handful of dinners they wind up sharing every week. Sometimes they’re at the Andrews, sometimes they’re at his apartment. Gran seems fond of Archie, asking after him during the few minutes they get to catch up in between her getting home from work and Munroe going to bed.

She’d been lucky enough to get a new, slightly better paying job during the summer. Her hours are steady if irregular and her sleeping pattern is practically nonexistent, but she doesn’t need help to make rent and the bit of prize money from matches that Munroe brings home every few months or so goes into a tiny savings account. Which they’re forced to empty entirely when her car breaks down and needs a half dozen repairs to get it running again.

“I can do it,” Betty volunteers as soon as Munroe mentions it over lunch one afternoon. “And a guy I know sells parts for cheap. That should save you a lot.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Honestly, I should be paying _ you_. I haven’t worked on a car in so long and I’ve been dying to get under a hood. ”

Archie and Veronica talk their friend Reggie into borrowing his dad’s tow truck and towing Gran’s beat up Toyota to Betty’s garage.

“My dad and I used to work on cars together,” Betty explains, popping the hood and surveying the car thoughtfully. “I think I’m supposed to not like it anymore, but there’s something about it that’s soothing. I love fixing things. And with cars, I know I _ can _fix it.”

“That sounds nice,” Munroe agrees, settling himself onto the cement with the most recent tome of required reading for his English class.

Jughead stops by to deliver lunch and Betty wiggles out from under the car and snags the bag from his hands.

“You only love me because I bring you food,” Jughead says forlornly. Betty plants a kiss on his cheek before dropping to the garage floor next to Munroe.

Jughead settles down beside her and passes Munroe another bag, “I didn’t know what you liked, but I figure Pop’s fries are a universal love.”

Munroe thanks him and digs into the basket of fries and the extra burger, never one to refuse free food. The three of them sit together for a moment, eating in amicable silence.

Munroe catches Jughead and Betty having some sort of silent conversation. Betty is shaking her head while Jughead looks pleadingly at her. Jughead turns to Munroe, “Hey, is Archie okay? We don’t see as much of him anymore and after everything that happened last year…”

Betty sighs, “We’re worried about him.”

Munroe takes the largest bite he reasonably can out of his burger to give himself time to think. He’s not about to tell them Archie has night terrors or they ditched school together because it was too overwhelming, but they’re also Archie’s friends. They care about him, clearly, and he doesn’t want to lie to them.

“He’s going through it,” Munroe says finally. “But he’ll be alright in the end, I think.”

“How are _ you _?” Betty asks. “You were in that place even longer than Archie. The adjustment back can’t be easy.”

Munroe laughs, not sure how to qualify any of what he’s been through. “I’m going through it too, I guess. The gym’s been good, though. For both of us.”

“Is that your brother that hangs out there on Wednesdays?” Jughead asks. “I’ve seen him sometimes when I stop by.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he hates being there. Trying to force some sibling bonding time, but he’d rather be off with his friends. Or just be anywhere that isn’t around me.”

“That sounds pretty normal. Jellybean never talks to me unless someone’s dying. And by ‘someone’ I mean, like, our immediate family. Or Archie, which is kind of the same difference.”

“I just missed out on the last two years with him,” Munroe says. “And I’m graduating and I don’t know what that means, but I want to be there for him while I can.”

“Do you have anything in common? Polly and I--” Betty stops with a frown and adds meaningfully, “are obviously are not on the best of terms _ now, _” Munroe has honestly no idea what she’s trying to imply; he’s pretty sure he’ll never catch up on all the drama that’s been happening in this group over the past several years, “but when we were kids, we had things in common. We would play dolls together. Watch movies we both liked. Our dad took us to musicals in New York a couple of times.”

“I guess we’ve got a few things in common,” Munroe allows. One thing, really, but Munroe hasn’t been sure how to bring it up.

They chat a bit more, about their families and friends, about school. They’re both growing on him a bit, until Jughead announces he has to leave to meet up with a few of his fellow Serpents and Munroe has to swallow down an uneasy feeling. It’s not the same out here as it was in L&L, but he doesn’t have too many positive associations with Serpents and he hasn’t forgotten about what Joaquin did to Archie.

Betty gets back to work and he wonders how she feels about it all. They must have talked at some point, worked through whatever conflict they had. He’s not about to accuse the person who’s fixing his car for free of dating a bad person.

The Toyota is up and running by evening and Munroe brings it back to the apartment triumphantly. Gran admonishes him for not paying Betty, but eventually comes around to the idea of inviting Betty and Jughead over for dinner at some point as a form of repayment. He leaves the Serpent part out; being ostensibly indebted to a Serpent might do her in. She’s frustrated enough at him for still seeing the L&L guys sometimes. It’s an argument neither of them will win, so they’ve worked out an arrangement where she glares at him every time he leaves the apartment without telling her where he’s going.

He honestly isn’t seeing any of the L&L guys that often. He’s the only one still in school and schedules don’t line up well. He and Thumper have been planning lunch together for weeks and only finally managed to make plans for a Saturday afternoon.

Thumper elected not to return to school and he’s been working odd jobs around town for now. Munroe doubts most of any of it is strictly legal work, but the way he sees it, that’s not really his business. As hard as it is, he’s lucky enough to _ have _family to go back to. If he was out on his own, trying to pay for rent and food, he’s sure he’d have resorted to more drastic measures. Hell, working with Elio had been a kind of drastic measure, although that feels like eons ago now. 

Thumper sits tucked into a booth at Pop’s, already eating fries. Munroe orders at the counter, making sure to buy an extra burger he can bully Thumper into taking, then drops into the seat across from him.

“How’s high school?” Thumper asks.

“Making it work.”

“Oh come on,” Thumper laughs. “You’re only back there because of your massive hard-on for Andrews.”

“Not what it’s about. I gotta set an example for Mal; I want him to graduate on time, maybe go to college. Just because I wasn’t--”

“But you are still carrying the torch for Red.”

Munroe has never confirmed nor denied that, although Thumper and Peter have both given him shit for his relationship to Archie and seem convinced they’re right. And the way Thumper’s grinning at him right now seems to indicate he’s taking Munroe’s silence as confirmation. Munroe’s too tired to argue.

“How sure are you that he’s straight?” Thumper asks.

“I’m _ not-- _ He’s-- I mean, I’m not thinking about him like that. We’re working together on the center, that’s way more important. We’re _ friends _.”

“Gross. Get a room. Or don’t, I guess, since pining seems to be your thing.”

The door chimes and Munroe turns around in his seat in time to see Archie walk through. Thumper mutters something under his breath and Munroe kicks him under the table while he exchanges a wave with Archie. Archie orders at the counter, then strides over to greet them, exchanging quick pleasantries.

“Oh, hey, Munroe. I’ve been meaning to ask. Do you have a date to the back-to-school dance?” Archie asks. “Cheryl’s planning something, I guess.”

Thumper chokes on his french fry. Munroe knows damn well Archie’s not asking him to the dance, but his heart clearly doesn’t understand the nuance and leaps his chest, “Um, no.”

“I-- Would it be weird if you went with Veronica? Or, not _ with _Veronica, exactly. She wants our whole friend group to go and I don’t want to go with just the three of them because it’d get weird since me and V broke up. So I was kind of thinking of asking Ethel to go as a friend and then you could come too so Veronica could have someone to dance with. But if there’s another girl you already asked, I get that.”

“Another _ girl_?” Thumper echoes and Munroe kicks him under the table again.

“I guess,” Munroe says, then adds impulsively, “But only if you save me a dance.”

“Sounds fair,” Archie cracks a grin. Pop calls his order up from the counter and he turns to go, “I’ll see you at school Monday.”

Thumper and Munroe eat in silence until he’s gone and then Thumper promptly kicks _him _ under the table, “The hell was that? ‘Only if you save me a dance.’ What happened to _ pining from afar, _bro?”

“It was a joke.” Which it was, but also very much wasn’t. Thumper looks thoroughly unconvinced. Munroe quickly changes the subject and they spend the rest of the meal catching up.

Munroe hasn’t forgotten about Betty’s suggestion of bonding with Mal, so after school on the following Friday, he suggests they walk home, which is stupid because it’s two miles and it’s starting to actually get a little cold out now, but Mal agrees for some inexplicable reason.

They mostly just shoot the shit, talking about whatever pops into mind. Munroe keeps trying to work their conversation toward his end goal, but realizes he can’t bring it up organically and finally just says, “I’m thinking about going to the QSA meeting on Monday. Do you want to come?”

There’s a beat of silence and Mal turns to look at him, frowning, “Look, dude, yes, I’m gay. But I’m not QSA gay. I appreciate the allyship attempt or whatever, but that’s not--”

“I’m not going because of you,” Munroe says. “I’m going for me. I just want to know if you’d want to come.”

“So you’re…?” Mal gives him a once over. “You’re gay?”

Munroe nods.

“Okay. Fine. I’ll go with you once, but when it’s bad, I’m not coming back.”

On Monday afternoon, Munroe and Malcolm push open the door to the empty classroom where Cheryl Blossom is running the QSA meeting. She sits perched on the desk at the front of the room, tapping her nails on the wood, and her eyes snap to them the moment they enter.

“Newcomers,” she says, appraising them.

“_Munroe _?” Kevin looks startled and Munroe realizes for the first time that just showing up is very much outing himself.

“This is my little brother, Malcolm,” Munroe says, hoping to deflect a little.

“I guess we’ll do proper introductions this meeting,” Cheryl says and quickly gets the group to rattle off names. Besides Kevin and Cheryl, there’s Cheryl’s girlfriend Toni and another student named Peaches.

“We’ve never had a proper LGBTQIA Alliance in the school before this last year,” Kevin says. “We’re kind of still winging it. Ms. Brandt is the faculty advisor for the group, but honestly she’s used to doing more one-on-one mentoring type of stuff.”

“It’s a work in progress,” Cheryl says.

“How’s being out in school?” Munroe asks. “I’m not quite there yet.”

“It used to be worse,” Kevin says. “Cheryl being class president helped. A lot of the teachers are, uh...”

“Uninformed,” Toni says.

“Woefully ignorant would be a _ charitable _descriptor,” Cheryl says. “Try vile, Reaganite hate-mongers. Therefore, part of our mission is to get those teachers tarred and feathered.” Her tone suggests she’s not being metaphorical.

“And some gender neutral bathrooms would be nice,” Peaches says.

“Also gender neutral bathrooms,” Cheryl affirms.

The rest of the meeting makes it clear more than anything this is a place to vent. Cheryl expresses her hatred for one of the teachers who refuses to let her and Toni be lab partners. Peaches gripes about a student who refuses to use their pronouns. Mal joins in to complain about a couple of the junior varsity football players who’ve been targeting him and his friends.

“Why didn’t you tell me about that?” Munroe asks.

“Didn’t think you could help. It hasn’t even been that bad, it’s just annoying.”

“That one’s an easy fix anyway,” Kevin says. “Tell Coach Clayton. He cracks down on that kind of stuff.”

The period ends and Mal leaves pretty quickly, but if Munroe remembers correctly, his next class is on the other side of the building, so it’s likely just him being responsible and not an indication of how Mal felt about the whole thing. But it still makes him apprehensive, like maybe he just blew their biggest potential bonding point.

Kevin falls into step beside him as they head for class, oblivious to Munroe’s worries, “Let the record show, I really wasn’t hitting on you when we first met. But since you’re the only non-former-cult-member gay guy at this school, would you be interested in coming to the dance with me?”

“I’m going with Archie.”

“You’re? With! I’m sorry, _ what _?” Kevin sputters.

“Archie’s friend group,” Munroe clarifies. “Uh, Betty, Jughead, Veronica, Ethel, and Archie. But um, you could always come with us?

“Playing seventh wheel.”

“I think it’d make Veronica the seventh wheel.”

Kevin’s eyes light up, “I love V, but I have to say, that would be incredibly satisfying to see.”

It doesn’t end up mattering, because Ethel gets strep throat and no one is really going with anyone besides Betty and Jughead. The mishmash of Kevin-Archie-Veronica-Munroe is largely irrelevant and as far as Munroe can tell there’s no awkwardness between Archie and Veronica as they all cram into Kevin’s van together.

When they arrive, the music carries out of the gym into the parking lot. The group shuffles inside and they’ve barely passed the threshold when Jughead darts off to find the punch bowl. Kevin asks Betty to dance, leaving Veronica with Archie and Munroe. Archie and Veronica make uncomfortable eye contact and he can tell one of them is on the verge of uncomfortably asking the other dance, so he takes the metaphorical bullet for Archie.

“Do you want to dance?” Munroe asks Veronica, offering her his arm. Her eyes light up and loops her arm through his.

She guides them out onto the dance floor and has no problem taking the lead, which is good because it’s been far too long since Munroe has danced with anyone. It’s a fun, upbeat dance and Veronica gets them spinning around and laughing.

“Thank you,” Veronica says, as the song ends. “Seriously.”

She swoops up to kiss his cheek and then swans off to find Reggie. Munroe tracks down Kevin, still dancing with Betty.

“Knight in shining armor,” Kevin says when he spots Munroe and spins Betty toward where Jughead is lurking along the wall.

Kevin turns out to be a surprisingly good dancer and can carry the lead just as well as Veronica. Munroe keeps wanting to say something, but he’s not really sure what. It’s nice though, the two of them spinning around and grinning at each other.

The next song is upbeat and Betty joins them. They stand in a circle and sway in place, laughing. Kevin does increasingly goofy dance moves and sends both Betty and Munroe into fits of laughter.

“So I think I owe you a dance,” Archie says, appearing behind Munroe as the song ends.

_ I was joking _, Munroe almost says, then doesn’t. He takes Archie’s offered hand and can feel several other sets of eyes on them, but he’s determined not to look.

The song starts up and there’s a flash of panic in Archie’s eyes and he realizes it’s a slow song. But he doesn’t back down, linking arms with Munroe and pulling him closer to the middle of the floor where there’s more room. It takes them a second to figure out where their hands should go and Archie ends up with his hands on Munroe’s shoulders while Munroe rests his hands on Archie’s waist and hopes they’re not shaking.

“I’ve never slow danced with a guy before,” Archie says, stumbling a bit despite the fact that they’re literally just standing there and swaying. “Uh, clearly.”

“You’re doing fine,” Munroe assures him, not that he has any frame of reference for this himself.

Archie’s fingers twitch on his shoulders as they sway and Munroe tries very hard not to psychoanalyze why that is or why he’s feeling lightheaded himself.

“You should spin me,” Archie says. Off Munroe’s confusion, he adds, “Everyone else has like three times already. We gotta catch up, dude.”

Munroe lowers one hand from Archie’s waist and takes Archie’s hand with the other, then carefully spins him around. Archie is grinning when he faces Munroe again, hands falling back into place on Munroe’s shoulder.

“Perfect.”

As the last notes of the song fade out, Munroe can’t stop himself from staring at Archie’s lips and thinking, for a moment, of what it would be like to kiss him. He has to shake himself, remind himself that he can’t. _ Won’t _. They’re not like that, no matter how badly he wishes otherwise.

The rest of the dance turns into something of a genderblind experience from there. Betty and Veronica end up slow dancing, foreheads barely an inch apart, Veronica’s hands firmly on Betty’s waist. Munroe really thinks he should ask someone about what’s up with them, but he’s not sure even they know. Archie drags Jughead onto the dance floor a few songs later, the latter looking a little annoyed at the situation but relaxing as Archie’s grin wins him over.

The noise and the heat and the low lighting all becomes too much and Munroe can’t think clearly anymore. He makes it outside, stumbling out into the parking lot and sucking in a lungful of fresh air. The booming of music from the gym behind him carries on. Only a few minutes pass before the door to the gym opens and Kevin emerges. He doubles over, hands on his knees, and takes in a steady lungful of air.

Munroe clears his throat, “Hey. You okay?"

Kevin jumps at the noise. “Munroe! Yeah, yeah I’m fine. It’s just the singing and dancing and the people. It’s-- It’s like it’s too _ normal _, sometimes, I guess? But I'm okay," Kevin says. With a hesitant smile, he adds, "Company's better out here anyway."

And if the two of them wind up making out behind the dumpsters fifteen minutes later, well, that’s their business.


	5. secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for general grundy-related stuff coming up in therapy

Munroe and Archie are in the middle of making dinner when Mary enters, waving an envelope, “Alright boys. Inspections are passed, paperwork is filed. The community center is officially a licensed non-profit.”

Archie’s hands are currently covered in a flour-egg-breadcrumb mixture, but Munroe takes the envelope from Mary and holds it up where both of them can read. The hours of falling asleep watching Munroe do paperwork finally paid off and Archie feels a grin creeping across his face. There’s more steps from here, he knows. They have to get together a board of directors and write for grants, but in terms of getting kids off the streets and somewhere safe after school, they’ve got their start.

“And I know you’re both underage but I’m hoping your grandma won’t kill me for making an exception, Munroe,” Mary says, reaching into the depths of her purse to retrieve out a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. “I bought us some champagne to celebrate. And there’s a cake Veronica had flown in from a bakery in the city.”

Archie finishes breading the chicken for dinner and gets it in the oven while Munroe sets the table. Mary opens the champagne with a  _ pop  _ and pours out glasses for the three of them.

“To Fred Andrews,” Munroe says, looking right at Archie.

“To Fred,” Mary repeats.

Archie raises his glass, “To Dad.”

After dinner, Mary cuts the cake, which both looks and tastes too expensive to eat. Munroe and Archie carry their slices out to front steps, enjoying the night air. It’s starting to get colder now that they’re entering late fall and Archie huddles into his jacket.

“Do you want to help me put up some flyers for the center after school tomorrow?” he asks. Veronica, addition to purchasing the cake, had helped them design something a few weeks back, in anticipation of the center’s approval.

Munroe pulls his coat tighter around him, “I can’t, actually. Mal and I are going to see a movie and I’ve had it planned with him for a while.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it then. Are things going okay with the two of you?”

“We’re almost nothing alike,” Munroe says, with a laugh that Archie can’t help but think sounds forced. “But he’s a good kid and we’ve found a couple things we can talk about.”

They end up meeting Wednesday morning and every morning the rest of the week to help plaster the school and every telephone pole in town with posters asking folks in the community to pitch in at the center as skill trainers or mentors and telling kids they’re welcome to come.

They spend their afternoons waiting for kids to show up and by day three, a few new kids start trickling in after school who aren’t usually there for the gym. Archie gets a call from a mom asking if they’re able to pick kids up directly from school. He has to say no, but he wonders about the practicalities of getting a van someday.

Munroe’s boxing lessons take off, going from two or three kids to almost a dozen. Archie watches them sometimes and it’s amazing how  _ good  _ Munroe is with them. He’s a calm, steady presence and most of the kids tend to listen when he speaks.

The brand new addition is guitar lessons, which Archie offers himself. He convinced Principal Honey to donate a few of the school’s extra guitars, since they never got a replacement music teacher and they’ve been largely abandoned. Malcom turns out to be his first student, bored enough to take Archie up on the offer so long as he’s stuck at the gym anyway.

“You’re doing fine,” Archie affirms as Mal’s fingers stumble over the strings and he gives a grunt of frustration.

He really is doing quite well for two lessons in and more importantly, he seems to like it, which makes Archie feel like he’s at least a semi-competent teacher.

“How was the movie with Munroe the other day?”

“What movie?”

“You went to the movie Monday, right? That's why we didn't get the posters up until later.”

Malcolm shakes his head. “He had a date that night and I got ditched with Gran.”

“You--” Archie frowns. “But he told me he was with you.”

“Guess he lied,” Mal shrugs. “He won’t tell me who it is either, so I’m betting it’s someone we already know and that’s why he’s being weird about it.”

The image of Munroe and Veronica dancing together at the back to school dance jumps into his mind. But Munroe wouldn’t go out with his ex, right? The dance had been a group hang out, he hadn’t asked Munroe to _date_ Veronica. That seems like a basic friendship rule, not to go out with your best-- with your friend’s ex.

Archie can’t break through the spiraling thoughts to say anything coherently helpful, but if Mal notices anything off, he doesn’t bring it up.

Archie’s still thinking about it when he gets to the car, trying to make sense of why Munroe would outright lie to him. They tell each other everything. Almost everything. Archie hasn’t told him about therapy yet, but that’s  _ different _ , and he’s been planning to tell him eventually, when he can figure out how to say it in a way that won’t feel stupid.

When he gets home, he tries to be quick about sneaking up to his room, but Mary catches him on the stairs.

“How was the guitar lesson?”

“Good,” Archie says, not turning around. His throat is tightening up, which is completely humiliating. “Mal’s a natural.”

“That’s wonderful! Hey, the next time you see Munroe, can you let him know I have some paperwork I want to go over with him? He mentioned wanting to learn more about the fine print stuff of how the center works. Or just send me his number and I can text him, I should probably have it at this point,” she pauses and Archie can hear the wheels turning in her head as she wonders why he’s kept his back to her the whole time. “Honey, are you okay?”

Archie gives up and slowly turns around to face her, “Yeah, it’s just-- I’m being stupid.”

“I don’t think you’re being stupid.”

“You don’t know what it is,” Archie says.

“I don’t have to know what it is. If you’re upset, it matters. It’s a mom thing,” Mary winks at him. “But you don’t have to talk about it.”

“I  _ really  _ don’t want to talk about it,” Archie says.

“Alright, go do your mopey teenager thing,” Mary gestures for him to continue up the stairs and Archie sprints the rest of his way to his room. He manages to talk himself out of a plan to call Betty to see if she knows anything about Veronica possibly going on a date with Munroe, and to talk himself out of outright calling Munroe.

They see each other at school the next day and Munroe figures out something is off almost immediately when Archie hasn’t spoken to him their entire first period.

“Red, what’s going on with you?” Munroe asks the moment they’re out of class. “Are you okay?”

“Why’d you lie to me about going on a date?”

Munroe’s eyes go wide. He casts a quick glance down the hall before turning back to Archie and lowering his voice, “How’d you find out about that?”

“Mal told me. It doesn’t matter. It’s fine, good for you. I just don’t get why you lied. Unless--”

“I can promise you, whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true.”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Archie, but he’s thinking  _ Veronica _ . Mentally screaming it, in fact.

Munroe gives Archie a long, searching look, and then says the last thing Archie anticipated, which is, “I’m going out with Kevin.”

Munroe’s still talking, but Archie can’t hear him because somehow Munroe not going out with his ex-girlfriend doesn’t make him feel better. In fact, this is worse. He's almost... angry? Holy crap,  _ why is he angry _ ? He’s known Kevin forever, it’s not because he’s gay. It can’t be that. He wasn’t like this when Kevin had dated Moose or Fangs. Or Joaquin.

_ Hey, Joaquin, are you with me? _

_ Dude, what are you doing? _

_ I’m sorry Archie. _

“-- didn’t want to come out until after graduation, but I guess… Archie, please say something.”

Munroe is looking at him pleadingly and Archie swallows, trying to think of the right thing to say. “Yeah, no that’s great. Um, I’m really happy for you.”

“Oh, good,” Munroe looks visibly relieved. “Listen, let me talk to Kevin and let him know you know. Don't tell anyone else yet?”  


Archie shakes his head numbly.  He waits the weird angry feeling will go away, but it doesn’t, even as the rest of the school day ticks by. He manages well enough around Munroe, but the second he catches sight of Kevin in the hall he gets the inexplicable urge to yell at him and he’s not entirely sure what about.

The small blessing is that today is a therapy day so the second school is out, he’s sprinting to his car and speeding to Dr. Harper’s office.

“Are you alright, Archie?” Dr. Harper asks as she settles across from him with her tea.  


“No, I think I’m just an idiot,” Archie says. Now that he’s sitting down, he feels stupid for how worked up he managed to get himself. He can still feel it in his chest, but it’s duller now. Dr. Harper is making her disapproving face at him, the one she makes whenever he says anything negative about himself, and Archie elaborates, “Munroe lied about going on a date and when I found out, he came out to me. He’s been dating our friend Kevin and it makes me feel really _weird_. And I think that makes me a bad person, right?”

“Oh,” Dr. Harper looks thoughtful. “Sometimes when friends date, regardless of their genders, it can be a weird feeling. Has Kevin dated other boys in the past?”

“Yeah, but this is different. This is like-- I feel angry. I didn’t feel angry when he was dating Joaquin or Moose or Fangs.”

“What about it makes you angry?”

“I just am.”

“At Kevin?”

“No.”

“At Munroe?”

“No. Maybe? I don’t get why he didn’t tell me. I tell him everything.”

“You’re both very close, it makes sense that keeping something from each other probably feels like something significant.”

“I thought we trusted each other. And he wouldn’t even tell me he was gay. Like after everything, he thinks I would care about that. And now that I’m thinking about it, I-- I do care. Not that he’s gay. I just care because-- He and Kevin don’t make  _ any  _ sense! What do they even talk about? Munroe and I have loads in common, we’re friends and that makes sense. I don’t get why he’d need a boyfriend.”

Dr. Harper gets a new, funny expression that Archie doesn’t understand, but he knows he doesn't like it. She clears her throat, “Friendships change when people date. You have a reason to feel uncertain about what that means. But it doesn’t have to be a drastic change. Maybe if you just talk to him about how you’re feeling, he could clarify?”

“I guess,” Archie shrugs. “Maybe I just don’t get it. I’ve never had a  _ great  _ relationship. Josie was okay, but I screwed things up with Val and Veronica pretty badly. And even before them, my first--” His first what? Girlfriend? Grundy could hardly be called that. “Uh, she was a teacher at the school. Geraldine. Or Jennifer, I guess her name wound up being.”

“You were involved with a teacher?”

He can see the concern in her eyes that he recognizes from his dad’s eyes. From Jughead’s and Betty’s when they’d found out. It’s a  _ poor Archie _ look and it makes bile rise in his throat.

“My music teacher, the summer Jason Blossom was killed.”

“And you consider that a bad relationship?”

“It was illegal. And I was stupid for thinking I could get involved in something like that without consequences. I’m lucky I didn’t get in more trouble.”

“Archie, what your teacher did to you--”

“Why does  _ everyone  _ phrase it like that?” Archie snaps. “‘What she did to me.’ I kissed her, I was the one who pushed for it to be something more. Why aren’t I responsible for what happened?”

“You were her student and a minor. It’s not your responsibility to stop something like that from happening, it’s on the adult to stop a situation from becoming inappropriate.”

“But she didn’t force herself on me. I know it’s-- Betty gave me a whole lecture about statutory rape and that it was okay if I needed to ‘process’ it or whatever but I don’t.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

Archie makes a noncommittal grunt in the back of his throat. This isn’t what he’d wanted to talk about. Hadn’t ever wanted to talk about it; it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s been through infinitely worse things since then; Grundy is a spec in the rear view mirror.

“Archie,” Dr. Harper says softly.

“She’s gone. And I was too stupid to say anything and I wanted to protect her and then she went after some other kids. Does  _ that  _ make it my responsibility? Because I didn’t stop her and then other kids...”

He’d found out later, after her murder, that there had been other boys. There’d been an expos é on the whole thing over in Greendale that Alice Cooper had shoved into his hands one afternoon.

_ “Still glad we didn’t take this to Sheriff Keller?” _ she asked smugly while Archie stared at the article in disbelief:  _ Slain Teacher Revealed As Serial Predator.  _ All printed in bold, unforgiving letters _ . _

Archie is breathing hard now and his chest hurts, like something that’s been coiled up inside is pushing to get out.

“None of this is your fault,” Dr. Harper intones. “But maybe we can help make sure she doesn’t--”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Dr. Harper sits back. “I-- Okay. But at some point, I think it’s important that we come back to this.”

The rest of the session is a blur and Archie doesn’t remember much of it outside of Dr. Harper asking him if he feels okay driving and if he wants her to call his mom to pick him up. He tells her he’s fine, but he ends up walking to Pop’s, because he really doesn’t feel safe to drive and he doesn’t want to go home and he definitely doesn’t want to go to the gym.

The moment he steps inside, he finds himself in Betty and Jughead’s sights from their booth in the corner. They wave at him and he debates with himself a moment before making his way toward them and slumping into the booth beside Jughead.

Their smiles falter and he wonders how visibly upset he looks.

“You okay?” Jughead asks.

“Bad therapy session,” he says, not feeling like he has the energy to make up a convincing lie. “I’ve been going since school started and I should’ve told you guys earlier, it was just this huge weird thing to bring up. Anyway, it sucked today.”

“Oh,” Betty says. “That’s good though, isn't it? Sometimes you have to feel worse before you get better, that's a therapy thing, right?”

“Yeah, today just sucked. I was freaking out about something and we ended up talking about Miss Gr--” he swallows on the name, “Her.”

Betty reaches across the table to take his hand, understanding immediately. Jughead’s arm comes to rest on the top of the booth behind him.

“She kept asking all these questions and I didn’t want to talk about it. She finally backed off. But I don’t want to talk or think about anything anymore.”

“Why would she ask a bunch of questions?” Jughead asks.

“I told her I didn’t want to talk about it but she kept asking. I don’t know. It’s fine, I’ll be fine.”

“Milkshakes are on us,” Betty says. “How can we help right now?”

Archie drops his forehead onto the cool table and mumbles, eager for a distraction, “How’s college applications going?”

“Terrible,” Jughead says, at the same time Betty says “Great, actually!”

Archie lifts his head up to see them giving each other pained looks.

“I’ve been thinking about taking a gap year,” Jughead says. “Maybe roadtrip, get some writing inspiration. Finish another novel. Betty thinks it’s a bad idea.”

Betty grimaces, “It’s not that. It’s just,  _ I _ am going to college. I’m not doing some hippie, stoner van life thing, so if you do that, I won’t be there.”

“Then Archie’ll come with me,” Jughead says. “Right, Arch?”

“Sure,” Archie says, trying to picture being stuck with Jughead in a van nonstop for a year. He’s sure they’d make each other crazy, but some part of him feels warm imagining it.

“It’s not a joke,” Betty says quietly to Jughead.

“I know,” he says back in a soft, sad sort of tone. He glances over at Archie. “College applications are going great.”

They don’t find a rhythm in the conversation after that. A melancholy curls around their booth and locks them in, but it’s a kind of melancholy that they share together and Archie almost finds comforting. Pop brings them milkshakes and burgers and occurs to Archie for the first time that though they’ll certainly be back for school reunions or holidays, even the constancy of Pop’s isn’t going to last forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ you can find me yelling about archie on tumblr ](https://archiesweirdfantasy.tumblr.com/)


	6. something undefined

Munroe doesn’t plan on the dumpster makeout the night of the dance becoming anything more. They brush themselves off, Kevin laughs a little, and they sneak back into the dance in time to meet the others for the drive home. No one picks up on their wrinkled clothes or asks why Kevin’s tie is missing. Munroe is starting to suspect everyone in this friend group is incredibly dense, not just because of him and Kevin but also because Veronica spends the entire time with her face against Betty’s neck and their hands tangled together on Betty’s lap and no one seems to think there’s anything strange about it.

Munroe has every intention of taking the weekend to forget about it, write it off as a moment between the only two gay guys in a friend group, but Saturday afternoon he receives a text from a number he doesn’t recognize.

**hey its kevin. got your number from b.**

Munroe stares at it for a solid minute before there’s another message.

**sorry if last night was weird?? despite what he claims, reggie did NOT spike the punch so i dont have an excuse**

Munroe texts back: **it’s fine!  
**

It looks too vague and placating, so he adds impulsively: **was much better than moping outside alone 😉  
**

He sets his phone aside and goes to make lunch. It buzzes. Several times. Mal gives him a weird look while he continues to ignore it in favor of making grilled cheese and Munroe wishes he’d just put it on silent. He checks it an hour later and sees a message from Archie: **hope last night was okay!** **sorry if things were weird at all with Veronica. thanks for the dance 😁 ur a hero**

His stomach flips and he texts back thumbs up emoji and hopes it’s casual enough. Then he reads the several texts from Kevin. The first is: **do u wanna go to the bijou with me on thursday**

Followed by a text from three minutes later: **if u dont that’s okay!!**

And another: **ignore the other texts**

And then: **if you’d rather not talk about last night ever that’s fine to!!**

***too**

Munroe laughs quietly and texts back:** how about monday?**

Seconds later, from Kevin: **Monday is great!! I can pick you up 6??**

***at 6!**

Munroe sends a quick confirmation text and tucks his phone away, realizing he just agreed to what is absolutely a date. Which is fine. He’s not seeing anyone else, he’s eighteen, and he’s allowed to go on a date with a nice boy from school.

When Monday arrives, Munroe spends the bulk of the school day wondering how the hell he’s going to talk to Kevin, but outside of lunch they don’t share any classes and so it’s not difficult to avoid him. During lunch, Kevin makes a point of putting space between him and Munroe and sitting on the other side of Archie. Jughead and Veronica are arguing about classism (“You can totally be classist against rich people. It’s a thing.” “There’s no structural oppression against rich people.”) and Munroe can’t believe he’s siding with _ Jughead_, but he can’t stop himself from butting in. And that takes up the majority of their lunch period and the rest of the day is also free of classes with Kevin, so he doesn’t have to think about it until that night when Kevin picks him up a block away from the apartment.

Kevin opens his door for him when they get out at the Bijou, which is nice, and they walk into the lobby together. Munroe takes note of every face he can, grateful each time he sees a face he doesn’t recognize until he spots a shock of long red hair. Cheryl has herself draped around Toni, her hands snaking into the pocket of Toni’s hoodie while Toni orders concessions.

She glances around the theater idly and makes eye contact with Munroe, sees Kevin next to him, and then gives them a wicked grin that sends Munroe into a panic before Kevin catches his arm and says quietly, “They’re not going to say anything to anyone.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Yeah, you are,” Kevin says gently. “It’s fine, I’ve done this before. The Bijou is probably the least suspicious date activity.”

“Cheryl--”

“Knows because she’s in the QSA and is extremely nosy. Archie could literally walk in and he’d be like ‘what’s up, fellas.’”

Munroe squints and Kevin shrugs. “I don’t know how Archie talks, I sort of tune out whenever he speaks now. Self-preservation thing. I had a crush from seventh to tenth grade and I had to get over it somehow.”

“Know how that goes,” Munroe says without thinking and Kevin winces. “Do you want popcorn? I’ll buy.”

Kevin’s eyes brighten a bit and he nods.

They load up on snacks and clamber into seats at the far back of the theater. They might as well just be friends hanging out at the movies, until their shared popcorn bucket is discarded onto the floor, at which point Kevin forearm presses against his and their hands are side by side on the armrests. After sitting like that for a good twenty minutes, Kevin moves his arm so it’s on the other side of Munroe’s and interlaces their fingers.

Kevin peeks over at him and Munroe isn’t sure what his face is doing, but it can’t be too obvious how panicked he feels because Kevin gives him a small smile and turns back to the movie. Munroe can’t pay attention anymore and couldn’t tell someone how it ended if his life depended on it. The credits roll and Kevin untangles their hands as they get up to go home.

“Do you want to go to Greendale next Monday?” Kevin asks once they’re outside the theater. “It’s a _ weird _town but you won’t have to worry about being outed, at least.”

Munroe nods and Kevin slows down, stepping in front of Munroe to face him. “Do you actually want to go out again or are you just being nice?”

“Sorry,” Munroe realizes how terrible of a date he must be, “I’m not good at the whole ‘normal’ date thing. This is the first time I’ve gone out with someone since middle school. Weird Greendale sounds good.”

Munroe lies to Archie. He doesn’t mean to, but when Archie asks, he can feel himself panicking and not ready to explain the not-quite-something he has with Kevin, so he says he’s going with Mal to the movies and hopes it’ll buy him enough time to figure it out.

Kevin picks him up a block away again and they drive across the river to Greendale where they end up crammed in a table in the corner at a tiny late-night coffee shop. It has nothing on Pop’s, but is good nonetheless.

Kevin brings them their coffee and sits down across from Munroe, “So…”

“This is weird,” Munroe says.

“Weird because Greendale exudes weirdness or weird because you’re on a date with a guy in public?”

“Both.”

“Normal is a setting on the stove or something. I think we’re way past worrying about weird.”

Munroe wraps his hands around the coffee mug. “Forget normal then. What’s up with the cult?”

Kevin laughs, “Okay, I’ll tell you, but you have to tell me about the fight club. Deal?”

“For sure,” Munroe leans in, genuinely curious.

“Okay, so it started technically two years ago. The first school musical I directed ended in a brutal homicide of my future ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend. Who was cheating on him with my other future ex-boyfriend,” Kevin frowns. “You know, maybe we should just go back to making out. I know a very nice spot in Fox Forest.”

They don’t, at least not until after Kevin gets through the rest of his bizarre cult story that ended in organ harvesting and Munroe in turn shares what he can about the fighting ring. Kevin doesn’t get the same look of horror on his face Gran or Mal do when he mentions something in passing to them, but he’s also decidedly not Archie or Thumper, who know all the details and have gruesome ones of their own. There’s a balance between them and it’s nice.

Making out in the woods is also nice. Kevin is far too familiar with Fox Forest than any one person has any right to be, but it works in their favor when he leads them back to a weird outcropping of rocks that are less uncomfortable than Munroe would’ve guessed when he finds himself pinned against it while Kevin kisses him senseless.

Munroe slides a hand under Kevin’s shirt, stopping when he feels a stripe of raised skin along Kevin’s side.

Kevin breaks their kiss just long enough to say, “Organ harvesting cult, remember?”

He goes back in for another kiss just as Munroe pulls his hand away and Kevin starts laughing, his forehead knocking against Munroe’s, “Oh my god, we’re so fucked, aren’t we?”

Munroe cups Kevin’s face in his hands and kisses him again, slowly, then mutters, “We should go before it gets too late.”

He groans, but nods against Munroe’s forehead.

They part ways a block from the apartment, after a lingering kiss goodbye in the car.

Kevin is far too kind and understanding about keeping things a secret, even though Munroe knows it can’t be easy. Lying to Archie and Mal about where he’s going feels weird, but there’s no way around it and things being the way they are make Munroe feel like he can breathe. There’s no rush to come out, no rush to label what he and Kevin are. He doesn’t have to think about telling Gran. He wants things to stay as normal for as long as possible and it feels like an attainable goal, until the morning Archie comes to school and won’t talk to him. Won’t so much as make eye contact and Munroe has no idea why until he catches him after class and asks.

“Why’d you lie to me about going on a date?” Archie sounds angry and Munroe has no idea what to say or how to say it, he’s just sort of _ saying _it. Munroe hears himself rambling an explanation about not wanting to be out just yet and how pointless coming out seemed in the last year of high school to a bunch of kids who wouldn’t stick around after graduation anyway. Archie’s expression remains blank throughout the whole ordeal and Munroe ends up begging, “Archie, please say something.”

“Yeah, no that’s great! I’m really happy for you,” Archie says. He looks a little blank still, but Munroe will take that over judgemental or uncomfortable.

Munroe realizes he needs to tell Kevin and he can’t pay attention for the rest of the next class, no matter how hard he tries. Lunch period finally arrives after what Munroe assumes is thirty years, and he waits in the hall outside the door to the courtyard until Kevin appears.

Kevin gives him an odd look when he spots Munroe by the door, but walks over to him all the same, “Hey--”

Munroe grabs him by the wrist and hauls him outside and to a table away from the rest of their friends.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what happened to secret keeping?” Kevin asks as he sits down with his tray next to Munroe. “Secluding yourself with me in a corner seems less than heterosexual.”

“I just came out to Archie.”

“Oh my god,” Kevin leans in. “And?”

“He was fine with it. I was worried for no reason, I guess.”

“Archie’s a good guy,” Kevin affirms. “He can definitely handle having a gay friend. Multiple gay friends, even.”

Munroe nods, his gaze falling down to his cafeteria tray. It feels stupid now, like he dragged Kevin through all that lying for no reason, but Kevin doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it, and asks cheekily, “Does this mean you might be okay with us not having to flee to Greendale every time we go out?”

“You’re not meeting my grandma. But other than that, yeah.”

“What about if I kissed you in the middle of the courtyard? Would you be fine with that?”

Munroe looks up at him, a smile creeping across his face, “Is that what you’re planning?”

Kevin gives a little nod of his head, _ Well, duh. _

“Yes, you can kiss me at school.”

Kevin does exactly that. Munroe can feel his heart pick up, anxiety tangling in his chest, but Kevin comes to rest one hand on his cheek and the warmth of it makes it all a little less terrifying. When Kevin pulls back, Munroe gives a quick glance around the yard to see if anyone else has been paying attention. A few tables over, the rest of their friends are sitting together, sans Archie. Veronica throws him a thumbs up and Betty is grinning. Jughead seems unmoved either way, but that’s not really a shock.

So things are okay. He should probably tell Gran at some point, but it’s a whole thing he actively doesn’t want to deal with.

The next day at school goes smoothly. Archie’s talking to him, Mal gives him shit for lying, and when he sits with the rest of the group at lunch, Kevin makes sure to sit next to him and makes a show of holding his hand.

“Okay, I want to know what’s going on with this,” Veronica wags a finger between the pair of them. “When, where, _ how _?”

“The dance,” Kevin says. “You all are so self-absorbed. We came back from outside with our clothes all ruffled and none of you said anything.”

“I thought you got into a fight and I didn’t want to ask,” Jughead says and Betty slaps his arm. “What?”

“No, you didn’t,” Betty chides. To Munroe and Kevin, she’s kinder, “I’m happy for you two.”

“I have more questions, but I’ll interrogate Kevin later,” Veronica says and Munroe has no doubt she’ll keep her promise.

Archie smiles a little, and gives Munroe a quick nod when Munroe catches his eye. There’s still a hint of something _ more _there, but Munroe desperately wants them to be okay, so he puts it out of his mind.

Things settle into another new rhythm. With the exception of Gran, everyone seems to know and Munroe feels good about it. Even Mary knows, and brings it up while they’re working on paperwork for the center.

“You take really well to all of this,” Mary says. “Legal stuff is always complicated, but you seem like you get the hang of it. Or you put in the work until you get the hang of it.”

“Well Archie can’t read, so one of us needs to know how to do this stuff.”

“He doesn’t particularly enjoy it,” Mary laughs. “You know -- and this is so not my place-- but I have to say, I was the tiniest bit disappointed when I heard you were dating Kevin.”

“What?”

“Not because of _ that _,” Mary says quickly. “I just mean you and Archie seem like a pretty good pair, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Munroe says. Because Mary definitely shouldn’t have told him that and also why would she think that was even a possibility?

“But I’m glad you and Kevin found each other,” Mary continues. “You two have both been through a lot. It’s good that you have each other.”

They turn back to paperwork and forms and working on a spreadsheet of potential grants and donors. They’re also trying to narrow down a real board of directors, but that still seems far off. For now, the informal board consists of him, Tom Keller, Mary, and Archie.

They’re working on authorization to shelter a few kids overnight. It hasn’t come through yet, but when Munroe gets to the center later that evening, two of Archie’s favorites, Eddie and Toby, are clearly planning to sleep on the streets and Archie starts giving him pleading looks the last two hours the center is open. Munroe finally pulls him aside into the office to talk while Chuck Clayton supervises a group of kids working on a mural to put up outside the center.

“We can both stay with them,” Archie says, as soon as the door to the office closes behind them. “We’ll set up the cots in the office again and I’ll give you a ride to school tomorrow.”

“I’ll stay,” Munroe says quickly, “but at least one of us needs to be up all night, we can’t both be asleep.”

“Done, totally,” Archie says. “I will buy you so much coffee on the way to school tomorrow.”

Archie grins and runs back out of the office to let the boys know.

By 11, after some cajoling from Munroe, Eddie and Toby are passed out on a pair of cots set up in the middle of the boxing ring, which leaves him and Archie to break out a deck of cards and talk in hushed voices. They get through a single hand of poker before giving up and just playing war.

“I’m sorry I was weird, about the stuff with Kevin,” Archie says in the middle of taking a huge pile of Munroe’s cards following a three-level war. “Things between you and me are always kind of intense, with the center and L&L stuff and I just thought we told each other everything. But we don’t. Like, I haven’t told you everything about my life.”

“Are you about to tell me you and Jughead have been hooking up all semester?” Munroe asks, trying to push some of the tension away before it settles.

Archie laughs and shakes his head, “No, not like that. It’s more like, I’ve been in therapy since September. And it’s really good but I feel weird about it so I haven’t told anyone. Except Betty and Jughead, but that was just a couple days ago.”

“Oh,” Munroe looks Archie over. “That makes sense, actually. You seem more steady sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Archie agrees. “I actually went right after you came out to me. I-- I was a total dick, I’m sorry.”

“You were fine.”

“Okay, well, maybe you didn’t notice, but I promise I was thinking dick-ish thoughts. You lied to me about where you were and I was freaking out and I thought you might’ve been sneaking around with Veronica and I assumed the worst.”

“Me and Veronica?”

“I know, it was so stupid.”

“_Veronica_?”

“I’m sorry!”

Munroe laughs. “I-- I would never do that to you. I wasn’t ready to be out. You can’t understand what that’s like, but that’s fine.”

Archie frowns at that, “No, I guess I can’t. But I just--” Archie stops, and then says much quieter, “You matter a lot to me. You’re the only person who gets anything that’s happened to me and I don’t wanna screw that up.”

And it doesn’t matter how much Munroe likes Kevin, because Archie is Archie and his heart beats a little faster whether he wants it to or not. “You matter a lot to me too, Red.”

Archie takes the first shift and Munroe passes out on the spare cot in the office until Archie wakes him three hours later. They trade back and forth until morning and seeing Eddie and Toby safely off to school is more than worth the bleariness with which he stumbles into school a few hours later.

“Are you okay?” Kevin asks, meeting Munroe at his locker.

“Late night. Don’t tell anyone, but we sort of illegally kept the center open for a couple kids.”

“I'm dating a rebel. Very hot,” Kevin says, leaning in to kiss him.

Munroe finds himself walking around the halls with Kevin more often than not these days. It’s partly because they’re dating and also because Kevin might be the only person in the school who could catch him up on three years’ worth of interpersonal drama.

“-- And that’s how the Vughead kiss happened,” Kevin explains, as they make their way to QSA much later that afternoon.

“How do you even _ know _that?”

“Drunk Betty. Takes about five drinks and then we’re,” he shifts his tone to an alarmingly good Betty impression, “_best friends, Kev _ and she rambles for forty five minutes to an hour about how screwed up her life is.”

“How are you cool with that?”

Kevin shrugs, “We’ve been friends since middle school. She was the first person who told me we were still friends when I came out. Everyone else-- even _ Archie-- _was weird about it for at least a little bit. She’s a good person. Also probably closeted.”

“Okay, so I was going to ask about that,” Munroe steps in front of him before he can open the door to the QSA classroom, forcing eye contact, “Betty and Veronica--”

“Kissed sophomore year, but it was some weird cheerleading tryout thing. I think Veronica was out of the closet in New York and changed her mind halfway through her first week about whether or not she wanted to be out here, although I can’t prove it. But she’s definitely not joking about wanting to be Betty’s second spouse someday, probably after she poisons Jughead in his sleep.”

“I’d buy that,” Munroe says, laughing, and opening the door. It takes Munroe a moment to register that someone new is in the room. Another boy, closer to their age than Mal’s. A senior, if Munroe had to guess.

“Fangs,” Kevin says, sounding winded. “You’re back.”

“Hey,” the other boy says, quietly. “Sorry, if this is weird. I can go.”

“No, no it’s fine. Um, you’ve met Munroe, right?” Kevin’s hand finds Munroe’s, his grip tighter than Munroe’s hand is entirely comfortable with.

“Yeah, I think so,” Fangs says, and Munroe places Fangs’ face from the raid on the apartment building and from a handful of times at the gym.

“Fangs!” Toni enters the classroom behind them and pushes Kevin and Munroe out of the way to get to him, nearly bowling him over with a hug. Cheryl follows in behind her, unimpressed.

“Welcome back from crazy camp, Toothless.”

“Cheryl,” Toni intones, still with an arm thrown around Fangs’ shoulders. “Don’t.”

Cheryl rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Today’s agenda--”

Munroe loses track of most of what Cheryl says during the meeting because Kevin and Fangs keep catching each other’s eyes and he’s not sure how Kevin is reacting to it, but it doesn’t sit well with him no matter how he reads it.

“Can we plan a woods date tonight?” Kevin asks, as soon as they’re alone in the hallway when the club gets out. “I’ll pick you up and we can just--”

“That sounds great,” Munroe says.

And it would be, except there’s clearly something wrong. Even when Munroe is doing his best to keep Kevin occupied by kissing down his jawline to his neck, he seems distracted.

“Are you still freaking out about Fangs?” Munroe asks, pulling back.

“No,” Kevin says, leaning in for another kiss, but Munroe puts a hand up to stop him and Kevin relents, leaning back against the rock outcropping, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s weird that he’s back now.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay, well, I’m not going to make out with you if you’re thinking about your ex the whole time.”

It’s not intended to be hurtful, it’s the truth, but Kevin looks pained anyway and takes a step to the side, putting distance between them. Munroe bites back the urge to apologize.

“Do you want me to drive you home?” Kevin asks.

“I’ve got some paperwork I need to drop off at the center first. Archie can take me home.”

Kevin agrees to that and they shuffle back through the woods and to the car together. Munroe has a sinking feeling that something just broke and he hopes it's not beyond repair.

Archie’s busy teaching his last guitar lesson of the night when Munroe gets into the center, but gives him a questioning look from across the room anyway. Munroe heads to the office, files the paperwork, checks emails (they have an actual email account now, courtesy of Mary).

Archie finishes up and pokes his head into the office, “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, Kevin and I ended our date early and I had stuff to do here,” Munroe says. “Can you give me a ride home?”

“Sure, yeah. Let me lock up and we can go.”

Munroe finishes replying to an email asking about paid staffing opportunities--_ none yet _\-- and locks down the office for the night.

It’s chilly outside. Munroe scans across the street outside the center and takes in the neighborhood he spends more time in than his own these days. It’s mostly empty now; businesses have shuttered for the night. Archie’s truck is parked out front. Halfway down the block is a black car that looks out of place. Too flashy, too new for this neighborhood. Before Munroe can think too much about it, Archie emerges with keys in hand and Munroe puts the car out of his mind to clamber up into the truck after Archie.

“Are things okay with you and Kevin?” Archie asks, as they pull out into the street. “You don’t usually stop by on Monday nights.”

Munroe sees headlights behind them and turns to look through the back window, “Did you see that car earlier? It was like a block down from the center and now it’s following us.”

Archie glances in the rear-view mirrors, “You really don’t want to talk about this, huh?”

“I’m serious, that car is following us.”

“I saw Fangs in the hall at school today, is that part of it?”

“Do not drive me home, Red. Go around the block, see if it’s still tailing us.”

Archie peers across at him and seems to realize Munroe's serious, “Okay, okay. Sorry. I’ll go around.”

They turn a few streets before the apartment building and the car doesn’t appear to follow them. Several blocks down, Archie turns back around to get back to the main road and back to the apartment building.

“Things are weird because Fangs is back,” Munroe says, in lieu of getting out of the truck once they're parked. “I don’t know what it’ll mean.”

“They weren’t together that long and it was mostly cult stuff, I think. Nothing against Fangs, but Kevin would be an idiot to pick him over you.”

“Thanks, Red.”

“Hey, I’m here for a pep talk any time.”

Munroe laughs and finally gets out of the truck, thanking Archie for the ride and heading into the apartment building. By the time he gets back into his room, he can barely make out the lights of Archie's truck disappearing in distance out his window.

He's about to close his blinds, when he notices there's a car parked halfway down the block that isn't usually there. A black car. It's impossible to tell from this far away, but he steps away from the window, he's certain that it's the car from the center. And he's certain that it followed them here.


End file.
